Tube-bundle cavity receiver for solar parabolic trough collectors

Activity carried out by: Hossein Ebadi, Laura Savoldi

This study aims to enhance the current optical behavior of PTC collectors, introducing a novel tubular receiver to increase solar absorption as well as reduce the reflection and radiation losses, by promoting tube-bundle and cavity concepts. The proposed configuration replaces the large conventional tubes with a series of narrow tubes that are bundled in a circular arrangement making an equivalent circle with a given diameter. Thus, the reduction in the tube diameter decreases the distance between the fluid core and boundary layers and increases the heat transfer efficiency. Moreover, as the peak concentrating flux in PTC systems is mostly collected on the bottom section of tubular absorbers, the existence of an aperture opening from the bottom part will make the total tube-bundle work as a cavity receiver where multireflection inside the cavity increases the flux absorption and decreases the radiation loss from the narrow tubes. The coupled CFD and Monte Carlo Raye Tracing simulations are used to optimize and evaluate the system performance.

Figure 1. Concept development of TBC receivers and optical simulation results.

Related papers

Ebadi, H, Kamfiroozi, S, Cammi, A, & Savoldi, L. "Optical Performance of a Novel Tube-Bundle Cavity Receiver for Solar Parabolic Trough Collectors." Proceedings of the ASME 2022 Power Conference. ASME 2022 Power Conference.