Transient study of a heat pipe integrated to a parabolic trough solar collector

Abstract

This research focuses on the study of a heat pipe tube integrated into a PTC system. The optical model was developed tracing the path of the solar ray. The model takes into consideration multiple reflections of solar rays between the glass cover and the absorber cylinder before their absorption, the model proved its ability to accurately study the effect of some geometrical and optical parameters on the optical efficiency of the system. A theoretical model was developed to determine in both steady and transient state the theoretical performances of a heat pipe integrated to a parabolic trough solar collector. A detailed numerical heat transfer analysis of a heat pipe absorber integrated into a parabolic trough collector was performed, energy balances were applied in each component of the system. The system of partial differential equations describing the unsteady-state behavior of the system was established and solved using the 2 nd order Runge-Kutta method on MATLAB. Finally, the steady state model was validated by comparing the numerical results with experimental data obtained from the literature. The results showed a good agreement correlation with experimental data.