Testing and Performance Validation of Ordinary Evacuated Tube Based Parabolic Trough Collector for Low Enthalpy Process.

Abstract

In this paper, a parabolic trough collector is designed and fabricated, and its thermal performance is evaluated for hot water generation. Theparabolic trough collector was built with a 90o rim angle with a small concentration ratio of 5.5, and the collector aperture area is1.7 m2.Both side open ordinaryevacuatedglass tube and acrylic sheet were usedas a receiver and reflective surface,respectively.Siemens NX has been used to simulate the maximum wind load of 1000 N. The thermal output of the collector is evaluated for close and open circuits as per ASHRAE 93 1986 (RA 91) standard. The achieved maximum efficiencies