Design of a library using Matlab software for modeling and simulation of parabolic cylindrical solar collectors (CCP)

Abstract

Much of the energy available to the earth comes from the sun, it is the largest source of radiation, emitting approximately 1353 W/m2 of energy into the Earth's atmosphere, in the form of electromagnetic waves, with wavelengths (λ) between 0,3 and 3 μm. Within this spectrum we find the following radiations: Gamma (1%), Ultra violet (4%), Luminous (49%) and Infrared (46%). Only 51% of the solar radiation that enters the atmosphere reaches the earth's surface. This radiation represents a main source for renewable energy, presenting great applicability in solar thermal energy and specifically in the use of parabolic cylindrical solar collectors; that take advantage of this radiation to raise the temperature of a fluid, located in a receiving tube. The great problem of these systems is to generate a good design, which allows to reach high temperatures and good yields, therefore, many investigations have generated multiple design software, which mitigates the margin of error, but generally this software are limited; With licenses, they are complex and do not specify all the features for processing. The main objective of this research is an open source library that allows obtaining the highest efficiency of parabolic cylindrical collectors, based on the theoretical references Duffie, Beckman and Kalogirou. For this, the Matlab software and the Soltrace tool were taken into account, in order to validate the sizing and optical, thermal, geometric and global performance. Within the results, the maximum concentration ratio of the parabola is checked, which is obtained when the edge angle is 90 °. A functional library can be generated, where multiple measurements and shapes of the parabola were simulated, obtaining the highest overall performance, when the focal length is equal to the maximum height of the parabola, obtaining a performance of 62.64%.