Experimental investigation and optimization of dimple-roughened impinging jet solar air collector using a novel AHP-MABAC approach

The effect of the flow and geometric parameters of a dimple-roughened absorber plate on the enactment of solar air collectors (SACs) with air-impinged jets was investigated in this study. The performance-defining criteria (PDCs) of a jet-impinged dimple-roughened SAC (JIDRSAC)-forced convection airflow system are significantly affected by variations in the system’s control factors (CFs), such as the arc angle (α(aa)) ranging from 30° to 75°, dimple pitch ratio (p(d)/D(h)) ranging from 0.269 to 1.08, and dimple height ratio (e(d)/D(h)) ranging from 0.016 to 0.0324. The constant parameters of the jet slot are a stream-wise pitch ratio (X(i)/D(hd)) is 1.079, a span-wise pitch ratio (Y(i)/D(hd)) is 1.619, and a jet diameter(D(i)/D(hd)) is 0.081. Based on the combined approach of the analytic hierarchy process and multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (AHP-MABAC), the Reynolds number (Re) = 15,000, α(aa) = 60°, p(d)/D(h) = 0.27, and e(d)/D(h) = 0.027 depicted the best alternative (A-9) set among 16 alternatives to deliver the optimal performance of the JIDRSAC. The jet impingement pass compared to the smooth pass, the Nusselt number increased by 2.16–2.81, and friction factor increased by 3.35–5.95, and JIDRSAC was compared to the jet impingement pass, exhibiting an enhancement in Nusselt number and friction factor in the range of 0.55–0.80 and 0.05–0.15, respectively. In addition, sensitivity analysis is used to examine the ranking's stability and reliability in relation to the PDC weights.