Thermal Performance Enhancement Using Absorber Tube with Inner Helical Axial Fins in a Parabolic Trough Solar Collector

Applied Sciences

Mohsen Saffari Pour¹  Seyed Soheil Mousavi Ajarostaghi²  Mohammad Zaboli³  Seyfolah Saedodin³ 

[1] Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman 76169-13439, Iran;Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Babol 47148-71167, Iran;Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Semnan University, Semnan 47148-71167, Iran;

关键词: solar energy;    parabolic trough collector;    thermal performance;    turbulator;    swirl generator;    numerical simulation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app11167423

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In the present work, a parabolic trough solar (PTC) collector with inner helical axial fins as swirl generator or turbulator is considered and analyzed numerically. The three-dimensional numerical simulations have been done by finite volume method (FVM) using a commercial CFD code, ANSYS FLUENT 18.2. The spatial discretization of mass, momentum, energy equations, and turbulence kinetic energy has been obtained by a second-order upwind scheme. To compute gradients, Green-Gauss cell-based method has been employed. This work consists of two sections where, first, four various geometries are appraised, and in the following, the selected schematic of the collector from the previous part is selected, and four various pitches of inner helical fins including 250, 500, 750 and 1000 mm are studied. All the numerical results are obtained by utilizing the FVM. Results show that the thermal performance improvement by 23.1% could be achieved by using one of the proposed innovative parabolic trough solar collectors compare to the simple one. Additionally, the minimum and maximum thermal performance improvement (compare to the case without fins) belong to the case with P = 250 mm by 14.1% and, to the case with P = 1000 mm by 21.53%, respectively.

【 授权许可】

Unknown