Absorber Diameter Effect on the Thermal Performance of Solar Steam Generator

Abstract

In this work, a convex lens concentrating solar collector is designed and manufactured locally by using 10 convex lenses (concentrator) of a diameter 10cm and one Copper absorber tube of a diameter 12.5mm and 1mm in thickness 1m length. Two axes manual Tracking system also constructed to track the sun continuously in two directions. The experiments are made on 17^th of May 2015 in climatic conditions of Baghdad. The experimental data are fed to a computer program to solve the thermal performing equation, to find efficiency and actual useful energy. Then this data is used in numerical CFD software for three different absorber diameters (12.5 mm, 18.75 mm and 25 mm). From the results that obtained the maximum thermal efficiency for the collector of diameter 12.5mm equal to 82.3% is higher than that for the collector of 18.75 mm and 25 mm diameter. The maximum outlet temperature is found equal to (105^ᵒC, 93.9^ᵒC and 83.5^ᵒC) for collector absorber diameter equal to (12.5 mm, 18.75mm and 25 mm) respectively. The maximum mass flow rate 0.53 kg/hr when the solar radiation intensity equal to 899 W/m². The all-day collector efficiency varies with diameter and reaches to maximum value of (77.9%, 61.4% and 52.8) for collector diameter equal to (12.5 mm, 18.75mm and 25 mm) respectively.