Publication: Fem analysis of solar water heater
Date
2002-03-01
Authors
Zainudin, Zaira Azlan
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Abstract
The direct use of solar energy has never before been accepted on a worldwide basis. The
costs of constructing devices or systems to use the sun’s energy have always been greater
than the costs of using the alternate energy sources available. In the immediate future,
however, the price of energy will rise even more rapidly than in the recent past. Alternate
sources of energy are dwindling, and their costs are increasing at rates of 10% or more
every year. We must explore putting the sun’s energy to practical use in supplying a
percentage of our ever-increasing energy needs. The “first” most appropriate large-scale
application of solar energy use concerns the heating of water for domestic use.
The sun is everyone’s life. Without its energy, the past, present, and the future of human
beings would not be. The sun has provided us with stored chemical energy in the form of
fossil fuels which is now rapidly being depleted, and this depletion is thus responsible for
escalated social and economics costs. To curtail these adversities, the direct application of
the sun’s radiant energy to alternative conversion processes such as photovoltaic,
photochemical, thermionic, thermoelectric, and heat must be continuously developed and
utilized. An economic “first” application for existing solar energy alternatives involves
using solar collectors to convert the sun’s radiant energy into heat energy for domestic
water heating.