Materials, heat pipe vacuum tube

The heat-pipe or direct flow vacuum tube system is the most advanced system, where the vacuum tubes have a perfectly sealed copper rod inside where a vaporising liquid remains and acts as a heat carrier.

This fluid is evaporated by solar radiation and rises to the upper end of the copper rod, which is at a lower temperature.

This causes the vapour to condense, give up its energy and return to its liquid state, falling by gravity to the bottom of the tube, where it receives more radiation, evaporates again and a new cycle begins.

Technical details:

As a key component of the heat-pipe collector, heat-pipe plays a very important role in this solar collecting system. The heat-pipe is composed of heat-energy absorption unit and condenser unit, and is hollow with the space inside evacuated. Under the vacuum circumstance, the air pressure inside heat-pipe is very low, thus the medium can be evaporated easily when absorbing certain energy. This vapour rapidly rises to the condenser zone and transfers heat, then becomes the liquid and returns to the bottom of the heat pipe since the heat is lost. This process repeats again and again, so the solar energy is transferred continuously.

Working principle

On heat-pipe collector, the condenser zone of the heat-pipe is inserted to the copper sleeves which are distributed on the water pipe averagely. After the solar energy is absorbed by the vacuum tubes, it is transferred to the heat-pipe through the aluminum fin. Heated by the energy, the medium in the heat-pipe is working and transferring the heat energy to the condenser zone. When water or other medium in the water pipe flows across the copper sleeves, they would bring the energy and be heated. The heated water or other medium makes water in the tank hotter and hotter by walking across the coils in the tank.
El agua calentada u otro medio hace que el agua del depósito se caliente cada vez más al pasar por los serpentines del depósito.