Investigation of energy and exergy performance of parabolic trough solar collector with wind speed variations

Vahidinia, Farhad; Khorasanizadeh, Hossein; Aghaei, Alireza

doi:10.22034/joae.2021.139660

Investigation of energy and exergy performance of parabolic trough solar collector with wind speed variations

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Farhad Vahidinia ¹

Hossein khorasanizadeh ²

Alireza Aghaei ³

¹ Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran

² Prof., Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran

³ Assistant Prof., Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran

10.22034/joae.2021.139660

Abstract

In this study, the effect of wind speed on the energy and exergy efficiencies of the LS-2 parabolic trough solar collector have been studied. The wind speed on the reflector and receiver has been considered between zero and 27 m/s. Three working fluids of Therminol VP-1, Syltherm 800 and Dowtherm A have been used. The results showed that at the inlet fluid temperature of 650 K and volumetric flow rate of 50 L/min, if the wind speed increases to 27 m/s, the energy efficiency decreases using Therminol VP-1, Syltherm 800 and Dowtherm A are 0.87%, 1.16% and 0.85%, respectively and the exergy efficiency decreases are 0.88%, 1.18% and 0.86%, respectively. Also the results showed that the variations of energy and exergy efficiencies for wind speeds greater than 10 m/s are negligible. The results indicated that although wind speed increase has little effect on the energy and exergy efficiencies of the collector, but the rate of these decreases are comparable with the rate of efficiency increases observed in previous studies using different efficiency enhancement strategies such as turbulators and nanofluids, so wind speed is important. The performance evaluation study revealed that using Therminol VP-1 and Dowtherm A are more suitable than Syltherm 800 to be used as working fluids in parabolic trough solar collectors.

Keywords

parabolic trough solar collector

wind speed

energy

exergy

20.1001.1.17359449.1400.23.1.9.8

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