In this paper, a parametric study on the thermal performance of a solar air collector with a v-groove absorber has been investigated. In this single-cover collector, the air flowing in the channel formed by the v-groove absorber and the bottom plate—which is flat and insulated—is along the groove, aiming at enhanced heat transfer rate between the air and the absorber by increasing the heat transfer surface area, which is crucial to the improvement of thermal performance of a solar air collector. To quantify the achievable improvements with the v-groove absorber, a flat-plate solar air collector where both the absorbing plate and the bottom plate are flat, is also considered. The thermal performance of these two types of solar air collectors is analyzed and compared under various configurations and operating conditions. The results show that the v-groove collector has considerably superior thermal performance to the flat-plate collector. It is also found that to achieve better thermal performance, it is essential to; use a small size of the v-groove absorber for the v-groove absorber collector and to maintain a small gap between the absorber and the bottom plate for the flat-plate collector; to use selected coatings that have a very high absorptivity of solar radiation but a very small emissivity of thermal radiation on the absorber and glass cover; to maintain an air mass flow rate above 0.1kg/m²s; and to operate the collectors with the inlet fluid temperature close to that of the ambient fluid.

The weak axisymmetric fountain that results from the injection of a dense fluid upwards into a large container of homogeneous fluid of lower density is studied numerically. Using a time-accurate finite volume code, the behaviour of fountains with both a uniform and a parabolic profile of the discharge velocity at the source has been investigated. The evolution of the transient fountain flow has been analysed and two distinct stages have been identified. The time series of the passage of the fountain front has been presented and the initial, temporary and final characteristic fountain heights have been determined and scaled with the Froude number at the source. At steady state, the final fountain height and the fountain width are found to be the height and horizontal length scales which provide the full parameterization of the flow in the fountain core. The vertical velocity and temperature on the symmetry axis have been scaled with the height scale and an explicit correlation is also obtained for the former. The radial distributions of both the vertical and horizontal velocities in the zone of self-similarity in the fountain core at steady state have been scaled with the two length scales and empirical correlations have been obtained.