THERMAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A PROPOSED POINT-FOCUS SOLAR COLLECTOR FOR LOW POWER APPLICATIONS

Document Type : Research Paper

10.22099/ijstm.2014.1971

Abstract

In this study, thermal performance of a proposed point-focus solar collector for low
power applications was estimated under different operating variables. For this purpose, theoretical
analysis was employed with varying relevant parameters, using a set of thermodynamics and
energy equations, i.e., ambient temperature, beam solar insolation, wind speed, wind incidence
angle and wall temperature of the absorber. The results show decreasing trend of the wind
incidence angle along with increasing the convective heat loss coefficient as the highest related
values obtained under head-on wind flow, but the wall temperature of the absorber exerts
negligible influence. The maximum thermal efficiency of 79.68% was obtained in August with the
side-on wind flow of 4.9􀝉⁄􀝏 and an ambient temperature of 29.2􀔨 when the absorber wall
temperature has a minimum value of 150􀔨.

Keywords