AIR SOLAR COLLECTORS : REALIZATION OF A TEST FACILITY FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF PHYSICAL PARAMETERS BASING A DYNAMIC MODEL

ABSTRACT Various experiments with air solar collectors equipments, under climatic conditions of North of France, showed the interest of dynamic control of such installations (variable air flow, for example). But most of the test facilities for characterization of commercial air solar collectors correspond to static operating conditions. After developing a dynamic model of air collectors, we have built, in cooperation with the CETIAT technical center at Orsay, a test facility which could allow the identification of the various parameters characterizing a specific collector in our model. This solar simulator lights up a 6 m 2 surface, and allows the user to reproduce quickly variable climatic conditions : solar flux, sky temperature, air temperature, wind speed. We present the main characteristics of this apparatus; the first tests realized with a commercial air solar collector allowed to identify clearly ten free parameters of our model, and showed an impressive agreement between data and model predictions, in transient states.