Further, its industrial applications (such as heating, cooling, or concentrating photovoltaics), solar energy conversion processes, and technological advancements in these areas are discussed. This study aims to present the state-of-the-art of parabolic trough solar collector technology with a focus on different thermal performance analysis methods and components used in the fabrication of collector together with different construction materials and their properties. Solar energy is one of the most important emerging renewable energy resources in recent times. Otherwise, the verifications against previously models in AZTRAK platform certify the necessity to correct the standard HTC, but the absence of absorber thermal profiles experimental data inhibits its validation.Many innovative technologies have been developed around the world to meet its energy demands using renewable and nonrenewable resources. The involvement of a CF in the DISS facility improves the accuracy of absorber cross-section thermal gradients predictions, reducing the mean deviations from 22.2 % (without considers it) to 6.9 %. The heat transfer variables mean deviations are lower than 2.4 % and 7.0 % for AZTRAK and DISS facilities, respectively. The model is validated in the AZTRAK platform and the superheated steam region of the DISS facility under steady-state conditions. The suggested CF is based on the azimuthal local Nusselt reported in past studies for circumferentially-varying BCs, and on the absorber experimental data from the Direct Solar Steam (DISS) test facility.
Its main novelty is to involve a correction factor (CF) in the standard heat transfer coefficient (HTC) correlations for uniform boundary conditions (BC), due to their inability to correctly predict the absorber thermal profiles.
The model is solved using the finite volume method, involving the NUFHD through a Monte Carlo ray-tracing method implemented in SolTrace. In the present work, a realistic 3D HCE − 1D HTF model under an unsteady formulation of the partial differential equations is implemented to properly calculate the receiver thermal distribution. As an alternative, 3D HCE models coupled to 1D heat transfer fluid (HTF) problem results in a much lower computational cost and accuracy enough.
Several 3D numerical studies have been implemented using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) commercial software, but with high computational effort.
Obtaining 3D temperature fields involving the non-uniform heat flux distribution (NUHFD) around the receiver becomes an essential matter for modelling and simulation tools. The prediction of thermal distributions around the heat collector element (HCE) is a key issue for the safety and efficiency in parabolic-trough solar collectors.