Numerical Investigation of Solar Parabolic Dish Collector and Cavity Receiver for Optimizing the Thermal Performance

Abstract. The thermal performance of the parabolic dish solar collector considering the flat surface absorber and the round surface absorber receiver has been investigated numerically. For this purpose, the optical performance of the parabolic dish collector has also been observed. The investigation was carried out by utilizing the CFD simulation software package ANSYS Fluent. The reflected solar heat flux from a parabolic dish is concentrated on receiver surfaces. SolTrace software was used to obtain the heat flux on flat and round surface receivers. The concentrating heat flux from the parabolic dish reflector was studied at five different locations. The maximum received radiation heat flux was considered for the performance analysis of the receivers. This maximum heat flux data is set as the boundary condition on the wall of the receiver plate. The mass flow rate through the receiver tube varied at a flow rate from 0.0083 kg/s to 0.0474 kg/s and inlet temperature varied from 290 K to 330K. From the obtained result, it was found that the round surface absorber cavity receiver provides a better result than a flat surface receiver. For operation at 290 K inlet fluid temperature, the heat transfer rate of round surface cavity receiver with conical exterior improves 50% than flat surface receivers. Oil is a more efficient heat transfer fluid than water. The outcome is specifically substantial at the spiral tube's bottom entrance. In order to increase the thermal performance of spiral tubes featuring uniformly distributed turns, six alternative modifications were made, among them with configuration 4 showing the most improvement in thermal performance over the others

Enhancing Thermal Performance and Cost-effectiveness of Compound Parabolic Solar Collectors: Exploring Novel Operational Configurations and Heat Transfer Optimization