Modeling of an Evacuated Tube Solar Cooker and Investigation of Weather Parameters Effect

In this study, the performance of an evacuated tube solar cooker analytically investigated. For this purpose, the heat transfer mechanisms in different components of the solar cooker is evaluated. The main aim of this article is to investigate the important parameters of the evacuated tube solar cooker in different weather conditions using the validated analytical model. The studied parameters are: wind speed, ambient temperature, and input solar radiation. The experiments performed at the Research Institute of Food Science and Technology, Mashhad, Iran (Latitude: 36° and Longitude: 59°). The results reveal that the presented analytical model is an accurate model that can be used in the paramedic analysis of the evacuated tube solar cooker. Moreover, in the reference weather conditions, the lost heat contains only 12.22 W of the absorbed solar radiation (137.51 W). Therefore, about 8.89% of the absorbed solar radiation is lost. Based on the results, the temperature of outer surface of the cooker is only 3.64 °C higher than the ambient temperature due to the vacuum between the tubes. In addition, the evacuated tube solar cooker has proper performance in various weather conditions. Increasing the ambient temperature from 5 °C to 35 °C enhances the solar cooker efficiency by 0.65%.