Thermal study of a parabolic trough collector

Abstract

Against the background of an increasing energy demand and growing environmental problems due to the use of fossil fuels reserves, the renewable energy resources offer interesting opportunities especially the solar thermal energy used for powering industrial applications and power generation. In the present work, we are interested to the simulation of outlet temperature of the Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) in a parabolic trough solar collector. The study of the solar collector involves two essential sections: the first section is related to modeling the Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI) corresponding to the latitude of considered place. The second section is dedicated to studying the heat transfer in the absorber tube and the glass envelope for determining the output temperature of HTF. A mathematical model is developed to determine the outlet temperature of HTF. The results show clearly that the outputs temperatures are very depending to the incident solar radiation and surrounding environmental conditions. They are compared with measured data of the collector outlet temperature at SEGS VI power plant.