Performance Enhancement of CPC Using Graphical Ray Tracing

Abstract

This paper presents the approach of finding an optimized location of a tubular receiver for a compound parabolic collector (CPC) with 23.06° acceptance angle. At this angle reflected rays concentrate at and directly above the main focus of a parabola. Ray tracing plays vital role in analysing rays falling on collector surface and reflected to the receiver. Using this analysis, solar collectors are often designed or improved to enhance the thermal performance. As compound parabolic collectors (CPC) are non-imaging kind and positioned in E-W direction, they are capable of assembling and reflecting an enormous quantity of radiation to the receiver with least tracking. Ray tracing technique was used to evaluate the performance of CPC. A graphical ray tracing (GRT) with SolidWorks was employed to observe the pattern of solar ray concentration. The main aim was to design CPC for low to medium temperature thermal process heat applications, specifically for Textile industries. It is observed that over one tubular absorbers will work better for CPC to absorb most solar rays and two tubular receivers lined up horizontally enhanced the CPC daily average optical efficiency by up to 15-20% compared to the single tubular receiver with the same diameter. Ray-Tracing analysis would possibly provide necessary contributions to beat design problems, complementing the experimental results obtained through thermal testing and allowing the accomplishment of extra thorough testing outputs with lower experimental requirements.