EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION AND GENETIC ALGORITHM OPTIMIZATION OF THERMO-HYDRAULIC PERFORMANCE IN SOLAR AIR HEATER WITH DISCRETE V-SHAPED ROUGHNESS

This study presents an integrated experimental and multi-objective optimization framework to enhance the thermo-hydraulic performance of a solar air heater (SAH) employing discrete V-shaped ribs on the absorber plate.A dedicated indoor test rig, utilizing a solar simulator, was constructed to collect performance data under controlled conditions.The key geometric parameters relative roughness height (𝑒/𝐷 ℎ ), relative roughness pitch (𝑃/𝑒), attack angle (𝛼), and gap ratio (𝑔/𝑒) were varied systematically.The experimental data were used to develop a predictive model, which was subsequently integrated with a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to maximize the Thermal Performance Factor (TPF).The GA identified an optimal configuration of 𝑒/𝐷 ℎ = 0.042, 𝑃/𝑒 = 11.2, 𝛼 = 56 ∘ , and 𝑔/𝑒 = 1.05.This configuration achieved a peak Nitesh Pachpor, Kapil Nile, Sudhir Dhomane https://iaeme.com/Home/journal/