Experimental Analyses on Parabolic Solar Collector at Various Operating Conditions

Abstract

This research work is concerned with comparative experimental analyses performed on parabolic solar collector. It presents the experimental analyses on parabolic solar collector at various operating conditions. For this experimental work, parabolic solar collector was fabricated. Various comparisons have been done between mirror concentrator and aluminium sheet concentrator. Experimental readings have been taken at 12:30 PM and at 01:30 PM and then performance of the solar collector has been found. For performance analyses, different pipe materials have been selected like copper pipe, aluminium pipe, brass pipe and mild steel pipe as receiver pipes. And different fluids have been selected for analyses like water and antifreeze ethylene glycol (coolant) as working fluids. Flowing fluids outlet temperatures, heat transfer rates and instantaneous efficiencies have been found at various operating conditions and then best operating condition for solar collector has been identified. This experimental research work can be concluded as up to 92% instantaneous efficiency and 12.2℃ temperature difference between inlet-outlet temperatures are achieved with aluminium sheet collector but 1208.99 W heat transfer rate is found through mirror collector with copper pipe and coolant. After all experiments, calculations and graphs have been plotted, concluded that overall performance of fabricated solar collector with the aluminum sheet collector, copper pipe and coolant is the best.