Experimental Study for Evacuated Tube Solar Collector with/without a Compound Parabolic Concentrator

摘要

This paper explored the thermal performance of evacuated tube solar collector with/without a semicircular compound parabolic concentrator (CPC). The configurations of tested systems were: (1) the system without CPC, (2) the system with Model A CPC (3) the system with Model B CPC. This work investigated and compared the thermal efficiency of the evacuated tube solar collector with the CPC by the surface temperature measurements of the evacuated tube solar collector and temperature difference comparison in water tank. Under the following experimental conditions, experimental data indicated that thermal performance of back surface for evacuated tube solar collector can be improved by CPC assuredly. Furthermore, we discovered that two systems with Model A CPC and Model B CPC can improve the efficiency of water temperature in water tank than the system without CPC. The test results showed that CPC can improve thermal efficiency of evacuated tube solar collector effectively while thermal performance was effected by radial size of CPC. To some extent, the bigger the radial size of the CPC, the higher the thermal efficiency. These experimental results provided basis and reference for practical application of Solar Water Heater (SWH).