Heat Transfer Analysis of Parabolic Trough Solar Receiver Using Nanofluids

Abstract

The present study is related to the numerical investigation of nanofluid as heat transfer fluids (HTF) on the performance of the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) under the laminar flow regime. This study aims to understand the effect of different nanoparticles with water as base fluid on the performance of the PTSC. So, different nanofluids such as CuO-water, Al2O3-water, ZnO-water, TiO2-water, and SiO2-water have been examined to select the suitable nanofluid as HTF. The analysis is performed numerically by discretizing the governing equations, namely, continuity equation, Navier-Stokes equation, and energy equation using the finite difference method (FDM). The in-house developed code in the present study has been verified with the results available in the literature and found good agreement between these results. The results show that Al2O3-water nanofluid enhances heat transfers as compared to other nanofluids. The effect of various parameters such as Reynolds number, the nanoparticles volume concentration ratio, and nanoparticle diameter on the temperature distribution and Nusselt number have been investigated. It is found that Reynolds number is more than 300 and nanoparticles volume concentration ratio is less than equal to 10% enhance high heat transfer rate but increasing nanoparticle diameter from 45 nm to 95 nm does not show any significant heat transfer enhancement.