Effects of System Parameters on Thermodynamic Efficiencies of Cylindrical Parabolic Solar Collector

There has been a remarkable inclination for use of solar collectors since renewable energy became an attractive source of environment friendly energy generation. Concentrating the solar radiation is an effective way of utilization of solar energy to generate heat and electricity. Cylindrical parabolic solar collector is a type of concentrating solar collectors and it has several applications worldwide. In this study, the performance of parabolic solar collector is evaluated for climate conditions of Ankara, Turkey. The collector is in north-south direction, inclined with latitude to south and tracking the sun with one axis of rotation. Effects of storage tank volume, fluid flow rate and collector aperture area on system energetic and exergetic efficiency as well as storage tank temperature are investigated by applying computational numerical analysis methods. System components which have decisive influence on system energetic and exergetic efficiencies are determined. It was found that after a certain storage tank volume, difference in thermodynamic efficiencies is negligible and optimum fluid flow rate is the minimum flow rate just after leaving the laminar flow regime conditions. It was also found that aperture area is a very dominant factor on storage tank temperatures.