Analysis of outdoor solar storage tanks having translucent insulation

A heat transfer model of a parallelepiped tank, full of water and covered with translucent insulation of diffuse material to solar energy, is developed considering the multiple absorptions and reflections to evaluate the heat gain or loss by water. The effect of the optical properties and thickness of insulation on that heat gained or lost by water is investigated. The results of a comparative study show that translucent insulation is more effective than opaque insulation and no insulation as far as the energy gained by water is concerned for outdoor solar storage tanks.