Experimental exergy analyses on fabricated parabolic solar collector with/without preheater and different collector materials

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis is an experimental work, to get maximum performance by parabolic solar collector (PSC). Three different PSCs are opted with same dimensions for this experimental work; mirror, aluminium and preheater–aluminium collectors. Copper, aluminium, mild steel and brass are selected for various absorber pipe materials. By experimental analyses, fluid temperatures, convective heat transfer coefficients, overall heat loss coefficients, heat removal factors, collector efficiency factors, inlet exergies, outlet exergies, exergy gains and exergy efficiencies are obtained at a range of operating conditions for fabricated PSCs. Exergy analyses are conducted with various fluid flow rates and with different PSCs and then graphs are also generated for these analyses. After analyses, this work can be concluded as – the brass as absorber pipe material and preheater–aluminium sheet combination as PSC are the most excellent to achieve the most favourable performance from fabricated system. This combination gives maximum exergy efficiency which is near about 78%.