Performance Evaluation of a Parabolic Trough Collector Receiver with Two different Pipe Exchangers

Abstract

In this work, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is conducted to investigate the parabolic trough collector (PTC) receiver with two different tube exchangers: one with a U-shaped tube and another with a UU-shaped tube. The outlet temperature, the thermal efficiency, and the temperature gaps are analyzed for three mass flow rates and an inlet temperature. The highest outlet temperature is recorded for the lowest mass flow rate, and the UU configuration outperforms the U configuration with an enhancement of 1.8% in terms of outlet temperature. The highest value of thermal efficiency is achieved for the highest mass flow rate, with values of 75.5% and 65.2% for the UU configuration and the U configuration, respectively. Concerning the overall receiver temperature difference, the UU configuration showed a significant reduction of temperature gaps compared to the U configuration for all simulated mass flow rates. The findings revealed that the use of different shapes of the exchanger has the ability to improve the PTC systems’ performances.