STUDY OF PERFORMANCE OF FOCUSSING TYPE SOLAR COLLECTORS

Abstract

Focussing type solar collectors are used in situation where higher fluid temperatures are needed such as per power generation and water pumping. The design and perfor-mance studies in this field are very limited. An invosti-gation into the performance of such collectors both experimentally and analytically has been attempted in this work with the aim of arriving at certain design parameters of tkn se collectors. A focussing collector wp s designed for an assumed load of x+00 W and its thermal performance was studied. Curves have been presented which show the effect of mass flow rate and inlet temperature differential on the collection efficiency. Besides, the cost analysis of the system was made and a set of design parameters for minimum system costs were obtained. It was found that there an optimum value of mass flow rate for the given system.