Computational and parametric analysis of parabolic trough collector with different heat transfer fluids

Abstract

Solar energy is abundantly available on earth. The temperature of heat source needs to be high for the higher efficiency; be it energy production through thermodynamic cycle or heat extraction using heat transfer media, and solar energy concentration devices helps in achieving high temperature. Parabolic trough collector (PTC) has its own advantage with concentration ratio upto 215 times with reasonable cost and operational convenience, especially when low to medium range temperature heating is required. Present work is focused on the experimental and computational study on PTC with different heat transfer fluids towards identifying a suitable heat transfer fluid and flow parameters towards achieving higher heat collection and transfer efficiency. Most decisive thermo-physical entity such as heat transfer fluid (HTF) and its property i.e. flow rate is varied and its influence on the thermal efficiency, heat transfer and net effective temperature gain is analysed with the numerical model and results validated with experimental work. For numerical study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach is taken using ANSYS–fluent software package. The experimentation results are in good agreement with the numerical model and suggest that with the flow rates of different HTF maintained within 3–5 LPM, the temperature gain can be achieved between 3–6 °C in a single pass with a maximum efficiency of 59.7%.