Data for Simulator testing of evacuated flat plate solar collectors for industrial heat and building integration

This paper demonstrates the reduction in heat loss coefficient and increase in efficiency resulting from evacuating a flat plate collector: it is hoped that these results will stimulate interest in the concept. Evacuated tubes are now mass-produced in large numbers; evacuated flat plate collectors could in principle replace these tubes if the technical difficulties in creating extended metal-glass seals can be overcome.

The experimental experiences described here should indicate targets for future research.<br><br>General note about code and data: (1) Collector test results have been saved as a structure in a Matlab file (effectively a small database) FMtests.mat (FM=February - March, originally), also summarised in an Excel sheet. Each test typically lasted most of a day and is split into sub - sections (“parts”) for each condition, e.g. illumination level.