Experimental Investigation on Enhancement of Convective Heat Transfer Coefficient in Parabolic Collector Using Nanofluids
Ritesh Krishna Sambare, Tushar Sathe, Nilesh C Kanojiya, Neeraj Sunheriya, Sachin Mahakalkar
Abstract
The thermal performance of a parabolic solar collector can be enhanced using nanofluid as a heat transfer fluid. In the present research work, the effect of Al2O3/water and CuO/water nanofluids are experimentally investigated in parabolic solar collector. Aluminum and copper tubes are used as a vacuum absorber pipe during experimentations. The performance of a water and nanofluids based parabolic solar collector is compared considering various performance parameters like: outlet water temperature, collector efficiency, and heat transfer coefficient. During experimentations, 0.1% volume concentration of the nanoparticles is selected with the variable Reynolds numbers. The CuO/water nanofluid based solar collector shows 91.42, 84.34, and 79.90% enhancement in collector efficiency compared to conventional water based solar collector at the Reynolds number of 3400, 4500, and 5600, respectively. The friction factor observed to be decreases with the increase in Reynolds number. It is concluded that with nanofluids, the collector efficiency of the parabolic solar collector can be enhanced by 10–35% compared with the conventional water as a base fluid.