Numerical Performance Analysis of Solar Parabolic Dish Collector with Different point Focusing Cavity Receiver for optimizing the Thermal Performance

Abstract

The thermal performance of parabolic dish solar collector considering the flat surface absorber and the round surface absorber receiver has been investigated numerically. For this purpose, the optical performance of the parabolic dish collector has also been observed. The investigation was carried by utilizing CFD simulation software package ANSYS Fluent. The reflected solar heat flux is concentrated on receiver surfaces. SolTrace software was used to obtain the heat flux on flat and round surface receivers. The concentrating heat flux from parabolic dish reflector was studied at five different locations. The maximum received radiation heat flux was considered for the performance analysis of the receivers. This maximum heat flux data is set as the boundary condition on the wall of the receiver plate. The mass flow rate through the receiver tube varied at a flow rate from 0.0083 kg/s to 0.04 kg/s and inlet temperature varied from 290 K to 330K. From the obtained result, it was found that the round surface absorber cavity receiver provides better result than flat plate receiver. For operation at 290 K inlet fluid temperature, the heat transfer rate of cavity receiver improves 83.6% than plat plate receiver.