Exergy Analyses for Parabolic Solar Collector at Different Conditions: PAPSC Software

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Mechanical Engineering Department, Sushila Devi Bansal College of Technology, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

Abstract

Parabolic solar system is a non conventional energy system and in this research work performance of parabolic solar system has been optimized. For this, PAPSC software has been designed and developed to analyse the performance of solar collector with and without considering Sun’s cone angle. Developed PAPSC software reduces human effort and eliminates human error. Various parameters have been calculated to analyse the performance of parabolic solar collector; heat gain rates, inlet/outlet temperatures, inner/outer surface areas of absorber pipe, concentration ratios, absorbed fluxes, overall heat loss coefficients, collector efficiency factors, heat removal factors, maximum useful energy available from solar radiation, inlet exergies, outlet exergies, exergy gain rates and exergy efficiencies have been found at different modes of orientations of PSC and then optimum conditions have been identified. This work can be concluded as; mode IV gives maximum exergy efficiency (61.93%) whereas maximum exergy gain rate (2178.10W) achieves with mode III, exergy efficiency increases when instantanious efficiency decreases but not with instantanious beam radiation, inlet exergy decreases with instantanious beam radiation but not with instantanious efficiency whereas outlet exergy decreases when instantanious efficiency increases but not with instantanious beam radiation. Exergies at inlet and outlet increase with dimensions of parabolic solar collector and also with instantanious efficiency but not with instantanious beam radiation.

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