THREE-DIMENSIONAL OPTICAL AND THERMAL ANALYSIS OF PARABOLIC

TROUGH SOLAR COLLECTOR: A NUMERICAL STUDY

By

Donga Ramesh Kumar

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Global warming issues and limited availability of conventional fuels directed the world to look

for alternative energy sources. The energy from the SUN is abundant and free. It is also clean

energy, as it does not produce any greenhouse gases. Concentrated solar power (CSP) is one

of the technique to harness solar energy. In CSP the solar energy is harnessed by concentrating

a large number of sun rays on to a smaller receiver to achieve higher operating temperatures.

The higher operating temperatures result in higher thermodynamic efficiency. Parabolic trough

collector (PTC) technology is well-commercialized electricity generation technology among

the different concentrated solar power technologies available today. The efficiency of the PTC

can be increased by improving the heat transfer in the absorber tube and/or by improving the

concentration ratio.

To design a high efficient PTC, the optical, thermal, and mechanical properties of the

PTC components are vital. In practical conditions, although the properties of the PTC

components are at the design values, the overall efficiency of the PTC is always below its

designed value because of the optical and/or geometrical errors present in the PTC system.

These errors occur during installation/operation of the PTC system. The high precision

installation methods to avoid those errors are very expensive and complex. The important

errors, which greatly affect the performance of the PTC, are curvature precision of the reflective

(concentrating) mirror and absorber tube misalignment

This work presents the performance of PTC under the influence of absorber tube

misalignment and reflector surface slope error. Optical and thermal performance of two
different PTCs have been evaluated. Optical analysis of the PTC has been done by using Monte

Carlo ray tracing method in the SolTrace Software. Finite volume method has been used for

the thermal analysis. Variable local heat flux, on the absorber tube, obtained from ray tracing

simulations has been incorporated in finite volume method. The study has been conducted for

LS 2 trough with 70 mm diameter absorber tube and for Sener trough 2 with two different

diameters of the absorber tube, 70 mm and 80 mm. Simulations have been done for slope error

and mass flow rate in the range of 0 to 3 mrad and 1 to 6 kg s-1 respectively. The absorber tube

misalignment up to 30 mm and each in two directions, i.e. along the optical axis and lateral

direction has been considered of the LS 2 collector. The intercept factor, Optical efficiency,

temperature gradients in the absorber tube, thermal efficiency, and overall collector efficiency

of the PTC have been evaluated. It is found from the results that collector performance is

affected by absorber tube misalignment, mirror slope error, and absorber tube diameter. It has

been found that the intercept factor decreases by up to 11% under the influence of absorber

tube misalignment and slope error for 70 mm diameter absorber tube. Results also indicate

that overall collector efficiency decreases by up to 11 % for 70 mm diameter tube with absorber

tube dislocation in the presence of slope error.

This study also presents the improvement of heat transfer inside the absorber tube with

fins. Longitudinal fins are employed inside the absorber tube of a PTC to increase the

convective heat transfer. The PTC having 5 m aperture width and 1.84 m focal length with an

absorber tube of 70 mm outer diameter is considered for the study. Results of a parametric

study conducted on the conventional receiver and finned tube receiver, for a range of Reynolds

number from 0.25x105 to 2.82 x105 have been compared. A significant improvement in heat

transfer has been observed for finned tube absorber. The maximum improvement in the Nusselt

number is 40.1%, and the maximum value of performance evaluation criteria for the tubular

receiver is found to be 1.28 at Reynolds number 2.82 x105.

 In this work, the rhombus tube absorber tube has been proposed to improve the

concentration ratio of the PTC. The concentration ratio of the PTC using rhombus tube absorber

has been estimated and presented. An analytical technique has been developed to determine

the optimum size of the rhombus tube for given trough dimensions. The optimum size of the

rhombus tube absorber is 13.8% smaller than the circular tube absorber for the LS3 trough with

no change in intercept factor. The maximum improvement in the concentration ratio is found

to be 31.5% for the troughs with rim angle 900in comparison to circular tube absorber. Results

also indicate that rhombus tube absorber can be employed for a range of rim angle 75o to 90o.