A parametric study to enhance heat transfer in the absorber tube of parabolic trough collector (PTC) is presented. Two longitudinal curved fins have been employed inside the tubular absorber of the PTC to enhance the heat transfer. SolTrace software has been used to calculate the local heat flux over the absorber. Thermal analysis of the receiver has been done by using Fluent Software. A comparative study has been conducted between un-finned receiver and finned receiver, for the range of inlet temperature 300 K to 650 K and Reynolds numbers 0.25 ×10⁵ to 2.82 × 10⁵ The efficiency of the collector has been significantly improved (up to 0.8%) with fins.

solar thermal energy, concentrated solar power, parabolic trough collector, finned absorber, heat transfer enhancement.

Received: September 2, 2020; Accepted: December 6, 2020; Published: January 22, 2021

How to cite this article: Ramesh K. Donga, Heat transfer enhancement in absorber tube of parabolic trough solar collector using longitudinal curved fins, JP Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 22(1) (2021), 21-33. DOI: 10.17654/HM022010021

This Open Access Article is Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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