Arunachala U C
Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India
Title: TWISTED TAPE INSERT BASED HEAT TRANSFER AUGMENTATION IN PARABOLIC TROUGH COLLECTOR: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
Biography
Biography: Arunachala U C
Abstract
Thermo-hydraulic performance enhancement of parabolic trough solar collectors is challenging in defining the feasibility of solar thermal systems. Apart from the use of twisted tape in conventional heat exchangers, its application in parabolic trough solar collectors is justified by the present experimental investigation. By the use of twisted tape inserts (twist ratios of 5.2, 4.1 and 2.7) maximum instantaneous efficiency of 21.9%, 29.5% and 40% respectively are obtained whereas only 17.8% is attained with a plain receiver at best flow condition. The effect of rising in pressure drop with insertion of twisted tapes is found to be insignificant compared to heat transfer enhancement as indicated by effective thermo-hydraulic efficiency of the system. These values obtained for best flow condition in case of plain and three variations of twisted tape are 17.7%, 21.8%, 29.3% and 39.7% respectively. For a comprehensive analysis of parabolic trough collectors, an analytical model is more viable due to the limitations of outdoor experiments. Hence, an effort has been made to develop and validate an innovative model based on the experimental results. The analytical outlet temperature of HTF indicated good agreement whereas deviation is observed inefficiency which is justified by the sensitivity analysis.