Abstract
Hot air heater with light oil combustion is used as the most common heater for greenhouse heating in the winter season. Hot air heaters of 256,246 units have been supplied as main greenhouse heating equipment until 2008 and greenhouse heating cost has reached to 620 billions won in Korea. In order to improve the thermal efficiency of the hot air heater and to reduce the expenses for greenhouse heating, prototype hot air heater was manufactured and tested in this experiment. The heat exchanger of tested prototype hot air heater was circular and hexagonal pipe type and inline and stagger arrangement type. Capacity of the heating was 43,062 kJ/h and total heat transfer area of the heat exchanger was $10.728\;m^2$. According to the performance test, it could supply heat of 38,240 to 35,100 kJ/h depending on the fan motor speed of 1,740~1,220 rpm, respectively. Thermal efficiency of hot air heater was 87.0% to 80.8% in the same conditions. As a result, thermal efficiency of hot air heater with hexagonal pipe-stagger arrangement heat exchanger developed in this study was higher 10.2% than that of conventional hot air heater and heating energy saving rate of 14.3% increased.
