Kuljeet Singh

Application of artificial bee colony algorithm for inverse modelling of a solar collector

Abstract This paper deals with the inverse analysis of a double-glazed flat-plate solar collector using the artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm. In domestic water heating, both low and high heat output from the solar collector is undesirable, so the solar collector is required to supply the hot water at a particular temperature only, which in turn requires a given distribution of heat loss factor. With this criterion, the present analysis is aimed at predicting feasible dimensions and configurations of a solar collector satisfying a prescribed distribution of heat loss factor using ABC algorithm. It is observed that many feasible alternatives of unknowns exist which satisfy a prescribed requirement, and using the ABC algorithm, the size of the solar collector can be minimised by 6–32% with reference to the existing records. The effects of changing ambient conditions are also studied. Furthermore, a comparative study of the ABC algorithm against other heuristic algorithms reveals its suitability and efficacy for the present estimation problem.

Approximate Analytical Method for Porous Stepped Fins with Temperature-Dependent Heat Transfer Parameters

This work presents the thermal investigation of a porous stepped fin made from different ceramic porous materials (Al and SiC) having temperature-dependent internal heat generation. The fin is dissipating heat to the environment by means of convection and radiation modes of heat transfer, which are further considered to be temperature dependent. The approximate analytical Adomian decomposing method is used to solve this nonlinear problem along with the Newton–Raphson method. The results obtained using the Adomian decomposing method are compared with relevant results available in literature. The effect of various thermophysical parameters on the thermal behavior of the fin is critically analyzed. An optimization study to maximize the heat transfer rate for a constant material volume has been also conducted. The performance of the porous stepped fin is compared with a porous straight fin and solid stepped fin, which proves that the porous stepped fin is a better alternative.

Application of artificial bee colony algorithm for maximizing heat transfer in a perforated fin

In this paper, an application of the inverse method based on the artificial bee colony algorithm has been demonstrated for estimating unknown dimensions of a rectangular perforated fin. The analysis has been done to maximize the heat transfer rate for a given volume occupied by the fin. The perforated fin has been assumed to dissipate heat by virtue of natural convection and surface radiation. The least square mismatch between a given volume and an initially guessed one is used to define the objective function that in turn has been minimized using the artificial bee colony algorithm. A comparative study reveals the advantage of the artificial bee colony algorithm against other evolutionary and stochastic optimization methods for the present problem. Since, there exist multiple dimensions satisfying a given volume, so, the most optimal dimension has been identified on the basis of a heat transfer rate maximization criterion. The study reveals that a given amount of heat transfer rate can be achieved with multiple combinations of the fin surface area and even a particular value of surface area can result in different heat transfer rates.

Closed-form solution for a rectangular stepped fin involving all variable thermal parameters and nonlinear boundary conditions

In this paper, the implementation of the Adomian decomposition method is demonstrated to solve a nonlinear heat transfer problem for a stepped fin involving all temperature-dependent means of heat transfer and nonlinear boundary conditions. Unlike conventional insulated tip assumption, to make the present problem more practical, the fin tip is assumed to disperse heat by convection and radiation. Thermal parameters such as the thermal conductivity, the surface heat transfer coefficient and the surface emissivity are considered to be temperature-dependent. Adomian polynomials are first obtained and then a set of Adomian decomposition method results is validated with pertinent results of the differential transformation method reported in the literature. Effects of different thermo-physical parameters on the temperature distribution and the efficiency have been exemplified. The study reveals that for a given set of conditions, the stepped fin may perform better than the straight fin.