Heat transfer analysis and modeling of a parabolic trough solar collector: an analysis

In recent years a nationally and internationally concern about energy production has been outstanding. The production of electricity in contrast to its increasing consumption, in addition to the environmental impact of its generation has been subject of studies and research in order to find solutions to the problem. In this context, renewable energies are configured with a high potential to increasingly integrate energy matrix. In Brazil, the solar energy is interesting, in this regard, due to the area availability for installation of solar plants and to solar radiation incident during the year. Thus, in order to encourage and facilitate studies around the parabolic solar concentrators used in these plants, the present work aims to develop and implement a mathematical model to calculate flow parameters and heat transfer applied to parabolic trough solar collectors. As a result, a simple and handy software that allows variation of parameters of the concentrator was created in order to evaluate its thermal performance. It permits insertion of customized values and meteorological data with greater flexibility. Results of numerical simulation shows that the mathematical model developed is reasonable and the program has shown to be very useful as a design tool, as it is possible to determine the thermal efficiency, optical, thermal losses, among others, in addition to presenting the radial and axial temperature profile, and a time-based efficiency profile. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.