THE PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT OF PARABOLIC TROUGH SOLAR COLLECTOR FOR HOT WATER PRODUCTION USING IN RURAL AREAS WITH COMPUTER-AIDED ENGINEERING

Abstract

Nowadays, parabolic trough solar collector technology is widely used in hot water production because this technology significantly increases the efficiency of hot water at a low cost, compared to the other technologies. But the design of parabolic trough solar collectors to achieve high thermal efficiency at an affordable price and can be used in rural areas has not been developed much. In addition, the technology of Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) has been continuously developed; therefore, it was the beginning of this research that focused on the development of a parabolic trough solar collector for hot water production in rural areas with computer-aided engineering using SolidWorks software. This helps predict heat transfer behavior between the fluid flowing through the solar collector tube and the environment. The research aimed to compare the effect of thermal efficiency of parabolic trough solar collector prototype obtained from the numerical study with the experiment and to study an economic value of this prototype. In the experiment, the research team conducted the experiment from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM during April 2022 and collected the results of various variables, including the temperature of water entering and discharging the solar collector tube, air temperature and solar irradiation. By comparing the simulation results with the experimental results, it is consistent: the parabolic trough solar collector could heat water temperature up to 64.3 C (simulation result) and 65 C (experimental result); moreover, its thermal efficiency was between 26.18 – 68.77% (simulation result) and 27.38 – 69.97% (experimental result) during a period from 12:00 AM to 3:00 PM.