EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF HEAT TRANSFER AND THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF PARABOLIC TYPE SOLAR COLLECTOR WITH RIBBED SURFACE TEXTURE FOR CLEAN ENERGY EXTRACTION
M. Arun, Debabrata Barik
Abstract
This paper examines the performance of a parabolic type solar collector (PTSC) that uses both plain tube and ribbed surface textured tube channels for elevating the water temperature used for various applications. The performance of a solar water heater is evaluated experimentally. During the experiment, the solar radiation intensity and the feed water flow rate of 1.0 kg/min to 5.0 kg/min in steps of 1 kg/min are taken into consideration for analyzing the effect of ribbed textured tubes on the thermal effectiveness, frictional factor, convective transfer of heat, Reynolds number, and the Nusselt number of the PTSC. Furthermore, the overall performance of the PTSC is analyzed considering the above thermo-physical parameters. Based on the result of this study, at a flow rate of 3.0 kg/min, the thermal efficiency is found to be enhanced by about 28.25%, the friction factor is augmented by about 0.23%, the convective heat transfer coefficient is improved by 24.22%, and the Nusselt number is increased by about 26.32%. On average, an overall improvement in the performance of 8.25% is observed for the ribbed textured tube than that of the plain tube. The experimental error analysis shows that the standard deviation for both plain and ribbed textured tubes is in the range of 3.2, which is in the acceptable limit.