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The aim of this work is to optimize the pipework system in the absorber plate of a solar thermal collector in relation to uniform flow and a lower decrease in pressure for modern solar heating systems inspired by nature. The other parts of the collector like housing, insulation, and the transparent cover should be the same as in common flat plate collectors using the existing production equipment and maintaining the production line. It is essential to tag the problems of common solar panels and to define the parameters meaningful for the fluid mechanics evaluation. The first part of this work describes thermal solar collectors and records the current state of the art. The evaluation of different natural channel structures should help to find a suitable network with good characteristics in utilization and flow resistance. The chosen examples will be captured and analyzed by using a CAD-Tool. Furthermore they will be presented, simulated, and analyzed with appropriate software to demonstrate their flow characteristic. The resulting new pipework model will be integrated in the existing pipework design of the absorber to obtain the first bionic-optimized pipework design.

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Stephan Thaler, MSc, studied Bionik / Biomimetics in Energy Systems at the Carinthia University of Applied Science and graduated with MSc in 2012. His thesis was created in cooperation with Geotec GmbH and shows the applied use of biomimetic optimization in established manufacturing processes.

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