Abstract

ESPINOSA GOMEZ, David; LOPEZ SOSA, Luis Bernardo; SEPULVEDA CISNEROS, Alejandro Adrián  and  MENDEZ ALFARO, Kevin Aldair. Simulation of a solar heating system using Python. Rev. cienc. tecnol. [online]. 2023, vol.6, n.3, e259.  Epub June 25, 2024. ISSN 2594-1925.  https://doi.org/10.37636/recit.v6n3e259.

Currently, dependence on fossil resources continues to dominate, even with the economic-environmental impacts that they generate; Therefore, it is necessary to encourage the production and use of renewable, affordable and sustainable sources. In this sense, this work focuses on developing solar thermal simulation software for the evaluation of low-cost and low environmental impact materials that can be used in solar heaters or thermal accumulators. Optimizing the use of stone, organic materials and those available locally with optothermal properties of high absorption and great thermal residence, to use them as containers for solar thermal energy. In this way, a desktop application has been developed in the Python programming language to simulate the absorbance and thermal accumulation of materials with the aforementioned characteristics using properties such as ambient temperature of the test site, solar absorbance, thermal conductivity and mass of the material. This software aims to make experimental processes more efficient, reducing economic, technological and material resources, by having a model of the thermal physics of solar thermal accumulation in natural materials, predicting their energy behavior without the need to build full-scale prototypes. Finally, it has been proven that the developed simulator provides a much more dynamic and easy-to-interpret analysis with easily obtained statistical data. That is, it allows not only the curve to be observed but also provides the dispersion of a continuous system of values, which can help to infer research data with greater simplicity and effectiveness on the optical and thermal properties of the materials studied. However, the development of the computer program can be improved, so it maintains a free access and open-source scheme.

Keywords : Computational algorithm; Simulation; Renewable energy.