EXPERIMENTAL-ANALYSIS AND PERFORMANCE OF AN ASYMMETRIC INVERTED ABSORBER COMPOUND PARABOLIC CONCENTRATING SOLAR COLLECTOR AT VARIOUS ABSORBER GAP CONFIGURATIONS

The performance of an asymmetric inverted absorber line axis compound parabolic concentrating collector (IACPC) was evaluated under a solar simulator. The IACPC had a concentration ratio of 2 and a maximum leng th-to-width ratio of 2.5 with provision to adapt from an untruncated c ollector to a half height truncated version. The selectively surfaced absorber/receiver was copper sheeting onto which was reverse-bonded tu bing along the long axis of the IACPC. High reflectance film covered t he aluminium substrate of the collector. Water was the heat transfer f luid flowing in the system. Stagnation and efficiency tests were under taken for the full and truncated versions of the IACPC at various abso rber gap heights to determine the optimum performance and absorber gap configuration. Overall performance is marginally better for the highe r gap height absorber configurations than for the lower at the range o f collector water inlet temperatures of 20 - 70 degrees C. Copyright ( C) 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.