Citation:
Abstract:
New receiver designs have been proposed to boost the heat transfer rate in the parabolic trough receiver (PTR) absorber tube, which can further improve the overall performances of the parabolic trough module. The objective of this study is to investigate the thermal performance and heat losses of the newly designed PTR wavy tube by means of a 1-D thermal model taking into account the change of the kinetic energy and pressure drop, and establishing a comparison with the conventional straight and smooth PTR absorber tube. According to the final results, the use of the S-curved absorber leads to higher thermal performance and simultaneously to lower heat losses. According to the thermal efficiency results, it is found an increase of 0.16% in the case of 450 K of the heat transfer fluid (HTF) inlet temperature and a straight length of 7.8 m of the receiver, while the heat losses decrease by a maximum of 7.72%.