Thermo-economic analysis of a novel parabolic trough solar collector equipped with preheating system and canopy

Abstract

This paper presents a novel Parabolic Trough Solar Collector (PTSC) equipped with a preheating system and canopy. The thermal, hydraulic, and economic characteristics of the PTSC are numerically investigated to achieve maximum performance evaluation criteria (PEC) index and minimum material consumption for different volume fractions of nanoparticles at various Reynolds numbers. The PTSC is also compared with a reference system without preheating system and canopy. The results indicate that preheating system does not have an obvious effect on friction factor of solar collectors. The PEC index values of the novel system are about 53.0% higher than those of the reference system. Besides, using canopy may have a crucial impact on the improvement of collector efficiency. According to thermo-economic analysis, the length of the PTSC is smaller than that of the reference system when their energy efficiency is the same, leading to lower production costs. It is found that the consumption of stainless steel and carbon steel decreases about 14% and the consumption of glass and carbon steel increases about 6% for the glass coverage and canopy.