Abstract
The current study's objective is to analyze the thermal performances of parabolic trough solar collector (PTC) by fitting helical coil-insert inside the collector tube (2 m long) considering distilled water and Al2O3 nanofluid of 2% concentration in terms of volume in the working fluid. The coil-inserts with 125, 135, and 145 turns are chosen to build the studied computational model. The analysis for the models is done using finite volume method (FVM)-based computational tool, ANSYS Fluent 14. The mass flow rates of working fluids are varied from 0.016–0.033 kg/s to study the effect on the performances of PTC. The maximum thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency enhancement values are achieved with nanofluid to be 12.32 and 8.72%, respectively, with 145 turn model at 0.033 kg/s mass flow rate. The introduction of more turns in the coil-insert causes an increase in pump work for all the studied cases. The highest increment for pump work is noted as 13.03% in 145 turn coil-insert using nanofluid instead of water as working fluid at 0.033 kg/s. The maximum enhancement of useful thermal energy output obtain for tubes with 145 turns is 32.37% at 0.033 kg/s for nanofluid than water.
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Abbreviations
- CFD:
-
Computational fluid dynamics
- PTC:
-
Parabolic trough solar collector
- A :
-
Area, m2
- C p :
-
Specific heat under constant pressure, kJ/kg K
- C :
-
Concentration ratio
- D :
-
Diameter, m
- E :
-
Exergy, W
- f :
-
Friction factor
- F :
-
Focal length, m
- G :
-
Solar direct beam irradiation, W/m2
- h :
-
Heat transfer coefficient, W/m2K
- k :
-
Thermal conductivity, W/mK
- L :
-
Tube length, m
- m :
-
Mass flow rate, kg/s
- Nu:
-
Nusselt number
- ΔP :
-
Pressure drop, Pa
- Q :
-
Heat rate, W
- R :
-
Radius, m
- Re:
-
Reynolds number
- T :
-
Temperature, K
- V :
-
Velocity, m/s
- v :
-
Volume, m3
- W :
-
Pumping work demand, W
- am:
-
Ambient
- c :
-
Cover
- ci:
-
Inner cover
- co:
-
Outer cover
- ex:
-
Exergy
- el:
-
Electrical
- f :
-
Fluid
- in:
-
Inlet
- loss:
-
Losses
- out:
-
Outlet
- over:
-
Overall
- o :
-
Reference
- r :
-
Receiver
- ri:
-
Inner receiver
- ro:
-
Outer receiver
- th:
-
Thermal
- tube:
-
Receiver surface
- u :
-
Useful
- w :
-
Wind
- α :
-
Absorber absorbance
- ε :
-
Emittance
- Ф :
-
Absorber peripheral angle
- γ :
-
Mirror reflectivity
- μ :
-
Dynamic viscosity, Pa s
- μ s :
-
Dynamic viscosity at the surface, Pa s
- ρ :
-
Density, kg/m3
- τ :
-
Transmittance
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Chakraborty, O., Roy, S., Das, B. et al. Computational analyses of parabolic trough solar collector in the presence of helical coil-insert. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 683–702 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03891-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03891-1