Thank you Alex Kee for going to the trouble of constructing a visual display of the principles involved. My apology for those commenters who decide to display their lack of civility and respect for the opinion of others...Welcome to "New America"!
I bought a 15 foot pool this summer and got two of these mats and they make a huge difference. We're only 2 days in and I can noticeably tell the difference!!!
excellent demonstration. this works and everyone should have use of this old skool , no moving parts and reliability. i have seen one work in the snow on a cloudy day. it achieved blowing off thru the tprv.
This probably one green lava lamp that you can watch over and over again without feeling guilty because no part of Gaia was harmed in the filming of this solar thermo-siphon effect in action ;-)
Very very impressive., and thanks . Great illustration. Im going with Thermosyphon using an enclosed box and double pane window frame over the top with the water storage tank some 8' higher and 30' away ; i expect there will be flow but very very slow which is alright since it will have all day to work till i take my daily shower at 6 pm. Thanks for doing this for us. Very encouraging.
This is a flat plate-solar thermos tubes hybrid. The inlet to the panel is from the bottom (and cooler part) and the outlet, the warmer part of the common insulated water tank via differential thermal water stratification dynamics.
Thanks Alex, exciting project. First, It can be clearly shown that painted water does not circulate into the tubes. Second, we can see bubbles which indicate boiling (not laminar flow). Thus thermal profiles shown by commercial vendors inside the tubes are not true, the main driving force is the boiling effect. I would be happy of being your friend and discuss these topics. Congratulations.
Maximum to boiling point of water and then any additional solar thermal is dissipated as latent heat. No way to control the energy capture as it natural solar insolation; efficiency and cost effectiveness of energy conversion, storage, insulation are the key factors in determining the operational effectiveness of the solar vacuum tubes heating system.
Basic thermo-siphon effect dynamics. Hotter water is lighter than colder water. Cold feed pipe into solar collector should be lower than hot out pipe for it.
Isn't the inlet to the panel supposed to be at the bottom of the panel and the outlet at the top, or are the tubes connected in a winding s like fashion?
The tubes appear to have heat pipes inside them, so the water is only flowing along a header near the styrofoam tank. The tubes themselves don't have any water flowing inside them at all.
Neat set up. How do you know which way it will go? Why did it go in the left side, and out the right? Why not vice versa? Just curious, as I'm trying to make one of these right now to circulate water through my house for heat.
The video is taken from a system located just 1 degree North of the Equator and the elevated angle, a mere 5degree is sufficient for thermo-siphon effect to do its job while optimizing solar collection with a South orientation.
oh, I mean making it larger, like 20'x20' and by turbine I meant a water wheel. sorry for the confusion. also, wuld you mind to explain what ESH is? never heard of that. I suspect it means Energy Saving "H", what does the H stand for?
Wow, that is a long, long, long shot, but the thermosiphon will nonetheless works unless cooled by the ambient cold air. If possible insulate the solar heated water in transit for better thermosiphon flow.
I have a drum I am going to use, it needs lagging with polystyrene to keep the heat in at night or cooler days, maybe a geyser blanket would do.? Any thoughts.?
Yup, just as I expected, that is a long shot for "thermosiphon pumping". Scientifically, thermosiphon is nothing more that basic thermodynamics where hotter water, being lighter floats upwards against gravity and/or on top of colder denser water per fluid dynamics too.
ESH: Estimated Sunshine Hours. You can try, but it is not likely to be economically viable as yet. Sunshine is free no doubt; capital expenditure is not.
you can assume by the spilled water that the bubbles were from air trapped in the lines as this thing was recently filled. The camera movement and harpsicord gave me a headache though :(
ok here is where your getting it a little wrong your thinking is oh when my garden hose is on the lawn hot water can come out, sure it can but that takes a long time for that to happen as rubber like PVC is an Insulator and heat is not transfered quickly thus you need copper. look at Heat pipes as this is what this is solar hot water system is using as well, they work alot quicker then the full water circulation ones, last thing is every bend in a pipe adds pressure, thus heat pipes are used.
@metropool Is natural gas free? Have they made it so it doesn't pollute at all? (think distribution for that one as well, the trucks that transport it to some people run on gas/diesel) It may be cheap, but until it satisfies both of these questions, it is still beneficial to our wallets and our planet, no matter how small a gain, it is still a gain.
Any non heat conductive material or bad heat conductive material are possible insulating material candidates: ranging from air to crumpled newspapers to discarded polystyrene packaging materials to clothings. Don't forget to always Repent, Rethink, Reuse, Recycle, Recover...
i made one with the whole on the bottom for the cold and one hole on the top. and the hot water was not riseing. does anyone have any ideas... i painted it black and used cpvc pipe as temporary. please help
I wonder if this process could be used to run a electric turbine? it would be slow of course, but would likely produce electricity until the sun disappears forever.
The plumbing looks wrong. The colder water need to go from the tank to the bottom of the solar panel; the top of the solar panel then should be plumbed to the top of the storage tank. In this video it looks like the tank is plumbed into the top horizontal tube: if so, the flow will still work, but the rate will be very slow.
The purpose of this clip is to simulate the thermosyphon in a typical solar heater common tank. It still works because of a phenomenon you may not be acquainted with: The natural thermal stratification of water. Learn something new today, I hope?
Ha, ha. Thanks for your advice, now go and make your own RU-vid and show us what you have got and not just talk, perhaps? That should be more constructive, for sure.
Hey there, I am doing a thermal siphon system for my project. I am facing problem for hot water flow back into tank during initialization.Whenever I am trying to give pressure to both tube from diff direction, both pipes eventually will have water flow from top to down. How should I fix this for a better initialization? Thanks
Try black HDPE (High Dense Polyethylene) pipes without any, or with the minimum intermediate joints, if possible. Although not as thermal conductive as metal, these HDPE pipes do catch enough sunlight to be solar functional.
+lickitysplit roberts Yeah this isn't the efficient way to do thermosiphon. The storage tank should be higher than the solar collector. This is just an easy way to show how it works, which the person accomplished.
Even more, why evacuated tubes and flat plate heaters efficiences are similar? Why if the evacuated tubes have better captation and less losses?. Your experiments let me see those things that i was believing, the overall thermohydraulics is better in the old flat plate than in the vacuum tubes. My name is Alberto , please forget my nick.
Between the horrific music and the stunningly bad video quality, I couldn't watch it. Just not worth it, no matter what information might have been contained. 11 seconds was more than enough pain for me.
