New Evacuated Tube Solar Collector with Parabolic Trough Collector and Helical Coil Heat Exchanger for Usage in Domestic Water Heating

Buildings represent approximately two-thirds of the overall energy needs, mainly due to the growing energy consumption of air conditioning and water heating loads. Hence, it is necessary to minimize energy usage in buildings. Numerous research studies have been carried out on evacuated tube solar collectors, but to our knowledge, no previous study has mentioned the combination of an evacuated tube solar collector with a parabolic trough collector and a helical coil heat exchanger. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the thermal behavior of an innovative evacuated tube solar collector (ETSC) incorporated with a helical coil heat exchanger and equipped with a parabolic trough collector (PTC) used as a domestic water heater. To design the parabolic solar collector, the Parabola Calculator 2.0 software was used, and the Soltrace software was used to determine the optical behavior of a PTC. Moreover, an analytical model was created in order to enhance the performance of the new model of an ETSC by studying the impact of geometric design and functional parameters on the collector's effectiveness. An assessment of the thermal behavior of the new ETSC was performed. Thus, the proposed analytical model gives the possibility of optimizing ETSCs used as domestic water heaters with lower computational costs. Furthermore, the optimum operational and geometrical parameters of the new ETSC base-helical tube heat exchanger include a higher thermal efficiency of 72%. This finding highlights the potential of the heat exchanger as an excellent component that can be incorporated into ETSCs.

Automated summary

Buildings consume approximately two-thirds of overall energy due to increasing energy consumption of air conditioning and water heating. This paper evaluates the thermal behavior of an innovative evacuated tube solar collector (ETSC) combined with a helical coil heat exchanger and a parabolic trough collector (PTC) for domestic water heating. The study presents a new analytical model to optimize the ETSC with lower computational costs, and identifies the optimum operational and geometrical parameters for a higher thermal efficiency of 72%. This research highlights the potential of incorporating the helical coil heat exchanger into ETSCs.