Two-dimensional Modeling of a Salt-gradient Solar Pond with Wall Shading Effect and Thermo-physical Properties Dependent on Temperature and Concentration

In this paper,the behavior of a salt-gradient solar pond with the square cross-section has been studied experimentally and numerically.A small-scale solar pond were designed and built to provide quantitative data.A two-dimensional,transient heat and mass transfer model has been solved numerically by using finite-control-volume method.In this study,all the thermo-physical properties are variable as the function of temperature and salt concentration.Numerical results as obtained for the experimental pond have been satisfactorily compared and validated against measured data.Furthermore,the wall shading effect has been elaborated to improve the agreement between two sets of results.The temperature of the storage zone is predicted well by the model.It also can be observed that the initial concentration profile is preserved with time.The stability of the pond in time has been investigated in order to distinguish the critical zones.Finally,the application of an energy analysis gives an efficiency of about 12%for the pond.