A MCRT and FVM coupled simulation method for energy conversion process in parabolic trough solar collector

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A coupled simulation method based on Monte Carlo Ray Trace (MCRT) and Finite Volume Method (FVM) is established to solve the complex coupled heat transfer problem of radiation, heat conduction and convection in parabolic trough solar collector system. A coupled grid checking method is established to guarantee the consistency between the two methods and the validations to the coupled simulation model were performed. Firstly, the heat flux distribution on the collector tube surface was investigated to validate the MCRT method. The heat flux distribution curve could be divided into 4 parts: shadow effect area, heat flux increasing area, heat flux reducing area and direct radiation area. The heat flux distribution on the outer surface of absorber tube was heterogeneous in circle direction but uniform in axial direction. Then, the heat transfer and fluid flow performance in the LS-2 Solar Collector tube was investigated to validate the coupled simulation model. The outlet temperatures of the absorber tube predicted by the coupled simulation model were compared with the experimental data. The absolute errors are in the range of 1.5–3.7 °C, and the average relative error is less than 2%, which demonstrates the reliability of the coupled method established in this paper. At last, the concentrating characteristics of the parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) were analyzed by the coupled method, the effects of different geometric concentration ratios (GCs) and different rim angles were examined. The results show the two variables affect the heat flux distribution. With GC increasing, the heat flux distributions become gentler, the angle span of reducing area become larger and the shadow effect of absorber tube become weaker. And with the rim angle rising, the maximum value of heat flux become lower, and the curve moves towards the direction φ = 90°. But the temperature rising only augments with GC increasing and the effect of rim angle on heat transfer process could be neglected, when it is larger than 15°. If the rim angle is small, such as θ rim = 15°, lots of rays are reflected by glass cover, and the temperature rising is much lower.