Design and experimental testing of a solar parabolic trough collector with its tracking system for salt-water desalination in arid areas of Saudi Arabia

This paper is concerned with an experimental study of a parabolic trough collector with its sun tracking system designed and manufactured utilizing the existing Saudi technologies and available local materials. For the design of the PTC frame, a finite element model has been developed and used to check the capability of the structure to absorb torsion and bending forces, under dead and wind loads. The PTC was fabricated in local workshops and the sun tracking system was assembled using off-the-shelf electric and electronic components in the Saudi market, while the mechanical components making up the driving system were procured from the second hand Saudi market. The fabricated PTC and its tracking system were tested outdoors on the roof of the Mechanical Engineering Department, King Saud University, Riyadh. The experimental results obtained have shown that the obtained characteristic curve of the tested collector is considerably lower than that of a typical collector which can be attributed to the higher thermal losses for the lack of the evacuated glass envelop around the absorbing tube, the end losses of the collector, and the inaccuracy in tracking the sun. However, the average collection efficiency of this collector is about 40% which is fairly acceptable, considering that it is the first attempt to manufacture such collector locally