Experimental study of thermal characteristics for enhanced solar pond

Two mini-solar ponds with surface dimensions of 2.4 m×2.4 m and depth of 1.2 m were constructed. Several methods are experimentally investigated with the aim of enhancing the thermal characteristics of solar ponds, which include putting porous medium to the bottom of the solar pond, covering the solar pond with a transparent plastic film, and combining solar collector with the solar pond. The experimental results show that the porous medium can save heat and reduce turbidity of solar pond, covering of plastic film can reduce turbidity and surface heat loss, and affect the temperature distribution of the lower convective zone, the introduction of solar collector enhances the temperature of the lower convective zone greatly, but has little effect on non-convective zone and upper convective zone.