3D Modeling of Temperature Distribution for Absorber Tube of Parabolic Trough Collector

Mya Mya Mon, Myat Myat Soe, Maw Maw Htay

Solar Parabolic Trough Collectors (PTCs) are currently used for the production of electricity and applications with relatively higher temperature. In this work, temperature distribution of absorber tube for fluid flow in a parabolic trough collector is studied. Three dimensional temperature distribution of the absorber tube due to uniform heat flux is analyzed by numerically. This heat flux is determined based on 21^st December of Mandalay which has the tropical climate in Upper Myanmar. Soltrace software is used to check the theoretical results of heat flux. Three types of fluid are used as heat transfer fluid and simulations are carried out k-ε model using Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD, COMSOL Multiphysics® 4.3b, for constant flow rate of fluid. It is observed that fluid is higher in temperature at the exit end of absorber tube with fluid flow rate of 0.5 m/s and solar flux condition of 938 W/m².