Comparative Performance Analysis of Three Different Parabolic Solar Concentrators

Solar collectors developed over the years can be categorized as concentrating or focusing collectors and flat plate collectors. This paper represents a comparative analysis of the three different configurations of parabolic solar concentrators. The developed systems were varied at different heights to attain an optimum focal length which converges at the cooking pot. Performance evaluation of concentrating solar cooking system was carried out using three different types of parabolic reflectors namely; L-shaped, U-shaped and thin foil L-shaped parabolic reflectors. Each reflector was fixed at 65 cm height from cooking vessel to the reflector during boiling test in order to determine the performance of the system. The measured parameters include; temperatures at different positions, wind speed, global, diffuse and direct solar radiations were recorded. The experimental results showed that, the L-shaped parabolic reflector made up of reflective mirror performed better compared to other two parabolic reflectors. The improvised locally available reflecting surface was ordinary mirror which was sliced to give take the parabolic shape and the maximum recorded temperature was 94.1OC with an efficiency of 7.58%