Thermal Performance of a Single-Pass All-Glass Parabolic Trough Receiver

A novel single-pass all-glass parabolic trough receiver (SPAG-PTR) was developed and the parabolic trough solar collector with concentration ratio of 7.5 was built to investigate the thermal performance of the SPAG-PTR. The indoor heat loss tests were settled as well as the outdoor experiments in quasi-steady-state and transient-state test conditions. The heat loss per unit absorber area of the SPAG-PTR in the average absorber temperature from 100 to 287°C was within the range of 85-674 W/m2, which represents a better heat loss performance (-15%) upon the Sanle-3 receiver (Nanjing Sanle Electronic Information Industry Group, Nanjing, China). The experimental efficiency in transient state was within the range of 0.53-0.73 with the experimental relative error of approximately 3.6-6.5%. In addition, the experimental efficiency curve in quasi-steady-state was obtained. In quasi-steady-state, the experimental efficiency was approximately 0.65-0.71 when the inlet heat transfer fluid temperature was in the range of 100-160°C. These verify that this kind of SPAG-PTR is very promising for intermediate temperature applications.