1 OPTIMIZATION OF THE GEOMETRY OF THE ABSORBER PLATE IN TERMS OF THERMAL PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMY, MANUFACTURING AND TESTING IT WITH THE COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE FLAT-PLATE COLLECTORS Energy Journal, (accepted 2002).

In this paper, an efficient and inexpensive absorber-plate for flat-plate collectors, produced in Turkey, is presented. The study gives the analysis and the optimization of the spacing of the pipes, thickness of the plates, and diameters of pipes for one type of material; galvanized iron. In the analysis, both material price and manufacturing processes are considered. The useful energy collection from the flat-plate collector per price of the absorber-plate is taken into account during the optimization process. The new absorber-plate is manufactured using hot-dip galvanization of iron and point welding. The absorber plate’s efficiency and price are determined together with those of three commercially available collectors manufactured in Turkey, absorber-plates of which are made up of aluminum and copper (ISTEK Aluminum and Copper, DAGSAN-Copper). For ISTEK’s aluminum collector, the intercept of the efficiency curve is 0.90, for ISTEK’s copper collector, it is 0.66. For DAGSAN’s copper the intercept is 0.81, and for the collector that has galvanized iron absorber-plate it is 0.82, which is increased to 0.83 after new optimization. The price of the manufactured absorber-plate is $23. After new optimization the price is increased to $25. The cost of ISTEK’s aluminum collector it is $ 53, for ISTEK’s copper collector is $32, and for DAGSAN’s copper collector is $53. Time constants of the tested collectors ar