High performance passive solar heating system with heat pipe energy transfer and latent heat storage

Preliminar results are reported from a current project on the development of a high performance passive solar heating system. Two special components are introduced: a. A heat pipe as a thermal diode tube for the efficient transfer of collected solar heat from the absorber plate to behind an insulation layer. b. A latent heat storage section with high storage capacity at moderate operating temperatures. Additional advantageous characteristics: the maintenance costs are negligable and the performance is highly insensitive to unadequate control of the system by the inhabitants. A first global design of the system showed significantly higher predicted gains than a conventional storage wall at however still high manufacturing costs; although the costbenefit ratio was already competitive with a similar active solar system. The project will be concluded at the end of 1983, with a optimized design of the system. First optimization exercises and series of measurements on the single components lead to the expectation that the final optimized design will be characterised by significantly reduced manufacturing costs.