OPTICAL AND THERMAL MODELING OF A HEAT PIPE EVACUATED TUBE SOLAR COLLECTOR WITH PRIMARY CPC-INVOLUTED REFLECTOR

Solar energy unquestionably plays a vital role for the future of clean energy production due to its availability all year round. Some prominent solar energy technologies, e.g. concentrating solar power (CSP), have the ability to focus/concentrate sunlight for large-scale commercial use. Meanwhile for smaller-scale residential use, solar water heating (SWH) systems are often installed to provide hot water for household applications, where the solar collectors are the main components of such systems. The type of solar collector of interest in this study is the heat pipe evacuated tube collector (HPETC). To enhance the system's performance and functionality, this study investigates the incorporation of a primary compound parabolic concentrator (CPC)-involute reflector to a single HPETC. The heat flux analysis has been done through optical ray tracing methods from SolTrace and ANSYS Fluent. The heat flux intensity around the absorber tube was compared for different times of the day. Results from this section of the study shows that the use of a primary CPC-involute reflector increases the overall heat flux received by the absorber tube as well as yielding to uniform heat flux distribution. A transient CFD model was also developed by combining both SolTrace data with ANSYS Fluent, where the fin temperature of the system can be predicted. The CFD model developed was validated with experimental data, with a maximum deviation of 7.2%. The validated CFD model can be used for further optimization study of a HPETC with CPC-involute reflector.