This study aims to investigate and compare the thermal performance of a solar air heater using a passive technique to enhance heat transfer between the absorber plate and the flowing fluid. The technique involves generating turbulence near the heat transferring surface through the use of artificial rib roughness. The study focuses on two different novel roughness geome-tries: full symmetrical arc rib roughness and half symmetrical arc rib roughness. By introducing additional gaps and varying the number of gaps in the roughness geometries, the study examines their effects on the solar air heaters thermal performance. The artificially roughened surface creates different turbulent zones, which are essential to the development of different types of turbulence in the vicinity of the heat transferring surface. The study finds that an optimal escalation in Nusselt number and friction factor by 2.36 and 3.45 times, respectively, occurs at certain gap numbers as 6 and ng as 5 for full symmetrical arc rib roughness. The maximum thermal-hydraulic performance parameter of 1.66 is attained at a Reynolds number of 6 000. The study also conducts correlation, mathematical modeling, and performance prediction under different operating circumstances.

Exergy analysis is a powerful thermodynamic tool and it helps in computing the actual output of a system. It helps the researchers to optimize the roughened solar air heater design to compensate the present and also the future needs. In this study, investigation on exergetic performance evaluation of a solar air heater with W-shaped roughened absorber surface analytically by employing mathematical model and the results obtained are compared with smooth plate solar air heater under same operating conditions. The exergetic efficiency curves has been plotted as a function of different values of Reynolds number and temperature rise parameter for different roughness parameters. The maximum augmentation in the exergetic efficiency of the solar air heater with W-shaped roughened surface as compared to solar air heater with smooth surface has been obtained as 51% corresponding to the relative roughness height of 0.03375 and the rib angle of attack about 60◦. Based on the exergetic efficiency the suitable design parameters of solar air heater with W-shaped roughened are determined.