Comparative study of parabolic trough collector for low-temperature water heating

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this study, the prototype of solar parabolic trough collector (PTC) is investigated to study experimental, optical and thermal efficiencies. The motive of this study is to develop low-cost PTC capable of producing warm water for low-temperature applications. Three different reflectors and three different receiver pipes with and without black graphite paint coating are tested. This paper deals with some of the feasible solutions to find out theoretical efficiency, optical efficiency and intercept factor. Design of experiment technique is used to design and analyze experiments. A regression model is prepared based on the analysis. As a solution, a combination of intercept factor = 0.231 and receiver value = 0.98 is found to be the best-fitted pair. Maximum efficiency of ηtheo = 15.3%, ηopt = 15.9% and ηexp = 12.4% are obtained.