Performance of an air collector versus the variation of the distance between absorber plate and the transparent cover in the site of laghouat, algeria

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the variation of the distance between the absorber and the transparent cover on the thermal conversion parameters of our solar collector with a single air pass implanted in the site of the University of Laghouat, Algeria. The experimental work with the following conditions such as: volume flow rate (0.012 m3 / s), an angle of inclination of the collector (80o) and three days selected randomly (clear sky). We used 3 parameters of distances: 20 mm, 27 mm and 34 mm. Then, by comparing the experimental and theoretical results, we show that the ?T of: Tp-Tab, Tpl-Tab, and Tout-Tab decrease with increasing of the distance. Moreover, It was found that the experimental thermal efficiency generally decreases too with increasing of the distances respectively 23.24%, 20.20% and 13.62% at 15h00. The findings of this study may serve as a tool on the design of the new solar air collectors.