Simulation and validation of the prototype of a solar thermal collector made with recycled tires

Abstract

This research determined the technical feasibility of a solar thermal collector built by reusing discarded tires. This work was motivated by the need to mitigate the environmental impact caused by the large number of these discarded elements. For the study, a medium-sized tire commonly used on light trucks was selected, with a storage capacity of approximately 37 liters.
The characterization of the collector’s dynamic and thermal behavior was carried out computationally using the academic simulation software ANSYS®. The solar radiation conditions used in the model were taken from the IDEAM database for the city of Pamplona. The simulation of the collector was experimentally validated by measuring the internal and external temperatures of the collector. The results show that used tires can be utilized as solar collectors and that energy recovery, or the transformation of solar energy into thermal energy, achieves an efficiency of 43%.