Temperature distribution analysis of parabolic trough solar collector using CFD

At present, industrial growth and its environmental impact show that solar energy for solar thermal power plants is the fastest growing environment-friendly form of energy sources for covering a variety of energy needs. The most common solar power plants available on the market use parabolic trough collectors (PTCs). For this, our study will target parabolic trough solar collectors due to the lack of precise studies necessary to find the three-dimensional distribution of the temperature of the absorber tube. The distribution of temperature is investigated by studying the effect of uniform solar heat flux on parabolic trough collector. The simulations are carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.1 software. To analyze three-dimensional temperature distribution, the solar heat flux condition of 1000 W/m2 is used as input data. It is observed that the fluid and the cover temperatures rise progressively from 298K until getting a specific temperature equilibrium value of 318K. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.