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| dc.contributor.author | ALEMAYEHU, MINTESINOT | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-12-04T05:34:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-12-04T05:34:21Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/11719 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Solar tracking systems benefits by escalating the energy absorption rate in the morning and evening periods. More specifically, in the near equatorial regions, passive type with bimetallic strips activator solar trackers are more expedient, and due to their relative low costs, they are exceedingly prudent option for emergent nations, like Ethiopia. Even if they are simple to construct and cheap in costs, passive solar trackers are not precise during operation. Particularly in the morning, the panel tend to face the west direction which causes them less efficient. Hence, in this thesis, the problem allied with returning the panel to its initial East position before sunrises have been solved with an enhanced set of angular rotation rate. The designed tracking system offers an additional future of relating the deflection of the bimetallic strips with the correlation of the gravitational potential energy and the spring potential energy changes in order to manipulate the rotation. In this thesis work, both fixed type and tracking type system have been designed and fabricated in order to compare their power outputs, energy collected by the panels. From the experiment, the designed tracking system produced an extra power of 47 Watt per square meter area and additional 25% solar energy relative to the designed fixed system. The fabricated new tracker has 96.4% accuracy with respect to the anticipated design accuracy which makes the system more reliable. When the designed system is linked to the previous related works, it shows a momentous difference in terms accuracy of returning the panel to East before dawn. Hence, no error was recorded in returning the panel in the case of the new designed system while, under the same conditions, the previous works shown 10 days out of 30 days of night returning problem. The designed tracking system has saved 2,132 Ethiopian Birr per square meter area compared to the fixed system this offers the prospect to minimize the area of the land usage, and it can save substantial amount of money that will be spent on expanding the fixed panel size for maximizing the power output. It can also be used in rural areas where there is no electricity with a limited availability of PV cells. This thesis work assumed, during the operations of the system, there is a surplus amount of water sources, but if that is not the case, it is suitable to use a small pump to recirculate the water in the system. | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.subject | Thermal Engineering | en_US |
| dc.title | DESIGN AND TESTING OF A PASSIVE SOLAR TRACKER BY USING A BIMETALLIC STRIPS ACTIVATOR WITH AN INTEGRATED NIGHT RETURN MECHANISM | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
