Experimental Performance Analysis of External Compound Parabolic Concentrators With Low Concentration Ratios for Medium Temperature Applications

Author(s):  
Donghao Xu ◽  
Ming Qu

Due to the mounting concerns about climate changes and depletion of fossil fuels, solar energy, as one type of renewable energy, has attracted a lot of interests from academia, industries, and government in the past few decades. Currently, solar thermal technologies have been applied to the applications at the low operating temperature below 100°C by using flat-plate solar collectors and at the high operating temperature above 250°C by using solar tracking concentrators. For the medium operating temperatures between 100°C and 250°C, flat-plate solar collectors can hardly reach 100°C and solar tracking concentrators are too expensive. In this context, the use of external compound parabolic concentrators (XCPC) for applications operated at medium temperature draws quite attentions because of its higher efficiency than flat plate solar collectors and better cost effectiveness than solar tracking concentrators. However, currently only a few experimental data is available on the actual performance of XCPCs from literatures, especially for the recently new XCPCs with a low concentration ratio. In order to contribute to the knowledge, a series of experiments have been conducted on the new XCPCs recently installed at Bowen Lab, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. The experiments showed that the XCPCs raised the temperature to 170°C, which is 140°C higher than the ambient temperatures, with a thermal efficiency of 29%. Based on the data collected from the experiments, the optical and thermal efficiencies of XCPCs are determined for different solar irradiations, operating temperatures, and incident angles. A new regression model is proposed and fitted accordingly. The experimental data and analysis demonstrated the feasibility and potentials of using XCPCs for applications in medium temperature range such as solar absorption cooling and heating systems, seawater desalination, solar disinfection, post-combustion carbon capture systems and other industrial process heating.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
García-Rincón Marco Antonio ◽  
Flores-Prieto José Jassón ◽  
Montoya-Márquez Orlando

Abstract This work presents a sensitivity analysis of the overall heat loss coefficient UL and the thermal efficiency η in low and medium temperature encapsulated flat plate solar collectors when controlling the output-input temperature difference ΔT and the angle of inclination β. The UL and η were determined using heat flow calorimetry at indoor conditions, emulating the solar radiation by the Joule effect and a PID control. The angle of inclination β range was 0-90°, and the ΔT range was 5.0-25.0 K. The ambient temperature and the mass flow rate were preset for each test. The UL experimental uncertainty was ±0.85 W/m2K for the inclination range of 0-45° and ±0.27 W/m2K for the inclination range of 45-90°. The results matched previous outcomes with a difference of up to 0.3 W/m2K. The UL behaved exponentially as β increased from horizontal to vertical position and linearly with ΔT. It was also observed that the UL and the efficiency were sensitive to the confined airflow variations. This model shows a sensitivity of low and medium temperature flat plate solar collectors, as the efficiency increased 140% when β was raised and 40% with ΔT.


1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Carvalho ◽  
M. Collares-Pereira ◽  
J. M. Gordon

Stationary, nonevacuated CPC solar collectors are a promising alternative to corresponding flat plate collectors in that they offer superior yearly energy delivery at comparable cost for low-temperature thermal applications. For realistic cost scenarios, we determine optimal concentrator configurations and concentration ratios, and calculate their sensitivity to variations in relative component costs, climate, orientation and collector operating temperature. For CPC’s that are to have the flexibility of either east-west or north-south orientation, optimized collectors are shown to have low concentrations of around 1.2, achieved by truncation from acceptance half angles of about 45 deg.


1986 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Gordon

Low-concentration, stationary, nonimaging concentrators (CPC’s) with flat receivers illuminated on both sides are considered as viable alternatives to flat-plate solar collectors. Closed-form, analytic formulae are derived for the geometric characteristics of two concentrator types of greatest interest (i.e., stationary collectors for year-round energy delivery), which enable calculations of collectible energy without computer ray-tracing stimulations. The relative merits of these concentrators in terms of energy collection and production costs are assessed with respect to each other as well as to flat-plate collectors.


2005 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. LaClair ◽  
C. Zarak

Abstract Operating temperature is critical to the endurance life of a tire. Fundamental differences between operations of a tire on a flat surface, as experienced in normal highway use, and on a cylindrical test drum may result in a substantially higher tire temperature in the latter case. Nonetheless, cylindrical road wheels are widely used in the industry for tire endurance testing. This paper discusses the important effects of surface curvature on truck tire endurance testing and highlights the impact that curvature has on tire operating temperature. Temperature measurements made during testing on flat and curved surfaces under a range of load, pressure and speed conditions are presented. New tires and re-treaded tires of the same casing construction were evaluated to determine the effect that the tread rubber and pattern have on operating temperatures on the flat and curved test surfaces. The results of this study are used to suggest conditions on a road wheel that provide highway-equivalent operating conditions for truck tire endurance testing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jalaluddin . ◽  
Baharuddin Mire

Actual performance of photovoltaic module with solar tracking is presented. Solar radiation can be converted into electrical energy using photovoltaic (PV) modules. Performance of polycristalline silicon PV modules with and without solar tracking are investigated experimentally. The PV module with dimension 698 x 518 x 25 mm has maximum power and voltage is 45 Watt and 18 Volt respectively. Based on the experiment data, it is concluded that the performance of PV module with solar tracking increases in the morning and afternoon compared with that of fixed PV module. It increases about 18 % in the morning from 10:00 to 12:00 and in the afternoon from 13:30 to 14:00 (local time). This study also shows the daily performance characteristic of the two PV modules. Using PV module with solar tracking provides a better performance than fixed PV module. 


2008 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neculai Catalin Lungu ◽  
Maria Alexandroaei

The aim of the present work is to offer a practical methodology to realise an Arrhenius type kinetic model for a biotechnological process of alcoholic fermentation based on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast. Using the experimental data we can correlate the medium temperature of fermentation with the time needed for a fermentation process under imposed conditions of economic efficiency.


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