THERMAL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF HELICAL COIL SOLAR CAVITY RECEIVER BASED PARABOLIC TROUGH CONCENTRATOR

Abstract

The present paper investigates the performance of helical coil solar cavity receiver based parabolic trough concentrator (PTC) for the conversion of energy received from the sun into useful heat and finally electricity. The experimental setup has been designed in such a way that it enhances heat transfer coefficient and reduces losses in the PTC. The PTC comprised of a blackened helical coil made up of two concentric borosilicate glass cylinder with vacuum in the annulus, which is kept at a focal line of PTC. The vacuum significantly reduces the losses which are evident from a relatively higher temperature of a 565K obtained at the surface of the helical coil.Heat loss from helical coil solar cavity receiver has also been investigated and it was found that with the increase in vacuum pressure at annulus by 50%, the losses from the receiver has been increased by 26.67%. The heat loss from receiver has been observed to be proportional to the vacuum pressure within the annulus space. © 2018 Serbian Society of Heat Transfer Engineers.