Improving the thermal-hydraulic performance of parabolic solar collectors using absorber tubes equipped with perforated twisted tape containing nanofluid

Abstract

The thermal and hydraulic efficiency of a parabolic trough solar collector is investigated in this study. The collector absorber tube is equipped with twisted tape with circular holes containing water-copper oxide nanofluid with three nanoparticles volume fractions of 1%, 2% and 4%. In three modes (d/W = 0.5, 0.7, 0.9), circular holes are constructed for the ratio of the circle's diameter to the twisted tape's breadth. All turbulent flow simulations were done using the SIMPLEC algorithm, FVM and RNG k-ε model in three Reynolds numbers as 10,000, 20,000 and 30,000. Studies have shown inserting twisted tape with a circular hole increases the pressure drop and the heat transfer rate compared to a pipe without twisted tape. The highest coefficient of thermal performance occurs in Reylond number of 10,000 and a nanoparticles volume fraction of 4%. The findings indicate that using nanoparticles improves the solar collector's energy and exergy efficiency. As a result, the best collector performance was obtained when using nanofluids with an nanoparticles volume fraction of 4%.