High performance flat plate solar collector

The potential use of porous construction is presented to achieve efficient heat removal from a power producing solid and is applied to solar air heaters. Analytical solutions are given for the temperature distribution within a gas-cooled porous flat plate having its surface exposed to the sun's energy. The extracted thermal energy is calculated for two different types of plate transparency. Results show the great improvement in performance obtained with porous flat plate collectors as compared with analogous nonporous types.