Artificial roughness on the absorber of the solar air heater (SAH) is considered to be the best passive technology for performance improvement. The roughened SAHs perform better in comparison to conventional SAHs under the same operational conditions, with some penalty of higher pumping power requirements. Thermo-hydraulic performance, based on effective efficiency, is much more appropriate to design roughened SAH, as it considers both the requirement of pumping power and useful heat gain. The shape, size, and arrangement of artificial roughness are the most important factors for the performance optimization of SAHs. The parameters of artificial roughness and operating parameters, such as the Reynolds number (Re), temperature rise parameter (ΔT/I) and insolation (I) show a combined effect on the performance of SAH. In this case study, various performance parameters of SAH have been evaluated to show the effect of distinct artificial roughness, investigated previously. Therefore, thermal efficiency, thermal efficiency improvement factor (TEIF) and the effective efficiency of various roughened absorbers of SAH have been predicted. As a result, thermal and effective efficiencies strongly depend on the roughness parameter, Re and ΔT/I. Staggered, broken arc hybrid-rib roughness shows a higher value of TEIF, thermal and effective efficiencies consistently among all other distinct roughness geometries for the ascending values of ΔT/I. This roughness shows the maximum value of effective efficiency equals 74.63% at a ΔT/I = 0.01 K·m2/W. The unique combination of parameters p/e = 10, e/Dh = 0.043 and α = 60° are observed for best performance at a ΔT/I higher than 0.00789 K·m2/W.
Keywords: Nusselt number and effective efficiency; augmentation; roughness; solar air heater; thermal efficiency.