Ultrasonic Welding Technology for Solar Thermal Collector

A solar thermal collector is a solar collector specifically intended to collect heat: that is, to absorb sunlight to provide heat. A flat plate is the most common type of solar thermal collector, and is usually used as a solar hot water panel to generate solar hot water. A flat plate collector consists basically of an insulated metal box with a glass or a plastic cover and a dark-colored copper absorber plate. Solar radiation is absorbed by the copper absorber plate and transferred to water that circulates through the collector in copper tubes. Ultrasonic welding is an industrial technique whereby high-frequency ultrasonic acoustic vibrations are locally applied to work pieces being held together under pressure to create a solid-state weld. In this study, we developed solar collector ultrasonic welding machine with digital controlled power supply and tested various welding conditions such as welding pressure, welding amplitude, welding speed. Welding speed was considered in 2~12m/min. The width of ultrasonic welds was increased with welding amplitude by 2.2~2.5mm. The fracture load of ultrasonic welds showed 20% higher than domestic products.