EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LOCALLY MADE PARABOLIC TROUGH SOLAR THERMAL COLLECTOR UNIT

The design and analysis of Parabolic Trough Solar Thermal Collector (PTSTC) system used to generate hot/steam water for domestic and industrial purposes were carried out. The parametric studies were also conducted on the collector, study the effectiveness of hot water production for potential applications. The PTSC was designed with Parabolic Software version 2.0. The fabrication and design were done with a combination of reflector surface, reflector support, absorber pipe and wooden stand. The absorber pipe was painted in black colour while the trough was manually operated. The flow of water in the system follows the recycling process repeated during data acquisition. The ambient temperature, the inlet and outlet temperature of the receiver and total solar radiation on the PTSC were recorded. Different flow rate of the Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) was tested at 0.021, 0.022, 0.023 and 0.024 kg/s respectively. Collected data showed the maximum outlet water temperature attained as 72oC. The average outlet temperature increased from 36oC at 10:30 hour to 69.84oC at 16:00 hour. The average beam radiation during the collection period was 699 W/m2. Different flow rates show that the lower the flow rate, the higher the efficiency of the system. The study revealed that the developed parabolic trough solar collector is viable for the production of sterilized water and low stage steam for domestic and industrial purposes