Numerical Investigation of the Thermal Performance of an Axially Rotating Internally Finned Receiver Tube of a Parabolic Trough Concentrator

Abstract

Enhancement of the thermal performance of the parabolic trough receiver tube is one of the approaches to energy sustainability. In the present work, the thermal performance of an axially rotating receiver tube equipped with internal flat longitudinal fins is studied. The effects of both the fin height and the rate of axial rotation are investigated at low values of axial Reynold’s number. The numerical analysis is held at various rotation rates using ANSYS Fluent. The numerical findings showed that the effect of the axial rotation on the internally finned receiver tube is not significant yet negative where a maximum reduction of 6% in the outlet temperature is reached in the 2mm height internally finned tube at rotation rate of N=21. However, the analysis showed that as the rotation rate increases, the temperature homogeneity between the fluid layers also increases and thus the liquid stratification phenomenon between the fluid layers is eliminated. The percentage of temperature difference between the fluid layers near the pipe center and the layers near the pipe wall reaches an optimum value of 58.4% at N=21 which is confirmed by an optimum increase of 110% in Nusselt number at the same rotation rate. However, a maximum loss of 81.6% in pressure coefficient is found in the case of the 2mm internally finned tube due to the increased turbulence. Thus, the integration of pipe axial rotation and internal fins can yield an enhancement in the heat transfer to the parabolic trough concentrator receiver tube and thus its thermal performance.