Fuzzy model representation of thermosyphon solar water heating system

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to focus on improvement in prediction accuracy of model for thermosyphon solar water heating (SWH) system. The work employs grey-box modeling approach based on fuzzy system to predict the outlet water temperature of the said system. The prediction performance results are compared with neural network technique, which has been suggested by various researchers in the last one decade. The outlet water temperature prediction by fuzzy modeling technique is analyzed by using 3 models, one with three inputs (inlet water temperature, ambient temperature, solar irradiance), next with two inputs (inlet water temperature, solar irradiance) and last one with single input (solar irradiance/inlet water temperature). An improved prediction performance is observed with three inputs fuzzy model. � 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.