An Experimental Investigation of a Nanofluid (Al2O3+H2O) Based Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors
K. S. Chaudhari *
Department of Mechanical Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, India
P. V. Walke
Department of Mechanical Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, India
U. S. Wankhede
Department of Mechanical Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, India
R. S. Shelke
Department of Mechanical Engineering, G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, India
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
In the present work the effect of working fluid (Al2O3 + water nanofluid) on the efficiency of a parabolic trough solar collector was investigated experimentally. The weight fraction of nano particles was 0.1% and the particles dimension was 40 nm. Experiments were performed with and without nanofluid. The mass flow rate of nanofluid is constant at 2 Lit/min. The results shows that, nanofluid based parabolic trough collector has higher efficiency than water based parabolic trough collector. For 0.1%, the increased solar thermal efficiency was nearly 7%. From the results, it can be concluded that the nanofluid causes an enhancement in heat transfer coefficient by 32%. The paper presents the preparation of nanofluid, calculation of nanofluids properties, test result and performance evaluation of Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors with and without nanofluids.
Keywords: Nanofluid, nanoparticle, effectiveness, isolated, solar thermal energy.