Numerical investigation of solar parabolic trough receiver under non uniform solar flux distribution

Three dimensional numerical modeling of parabolic trough receiver is performed to study the non uniform flux distribution on the outer surface of the receiver by coupling Monte Carlo Ray-Tracing Method (MCRT) with the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and calculated non uniform flux distribution is considered as a thermal boundary condition. The numerical model is solved by considering RNG k-ϵ turbulent model. In this paper, different Heat Transfer Fluids (HTF) with respect to the various operating parameters such as mass flow rate, Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI), inlet temperature and ambient conditions are considered. The temperature profile of both absorber and glass envelope follows the non-uniform solar heat flux distribution curve. Three dimensional temperature distribution of the absorber tube is calculated numerically for different inlet temperature and velocity of HTF. The maximum solar heat flux attained by the PTC receiver is 9753.3 W/m2, 19506 W/m2, 29260 W/m2, and 39013 W/m2 when the DNI are 200 W/m2, 400 W/m2, 600 W/m2, and 800 W/m2 respectively.