Integrated optical-thermal model to predict the performance of a solar parabolic dish collector for process heating applications

A Monte-Carlo Ray Tracing (MCRT) coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model was developed for a 40 m2 parabolic dish collector (PDC) used for process heating applications. A hyperbolic-shaped receiver was used for the considered PDC system. SolTrace, as a raytracing tool, is used to obtain the distributed flux at the helical tube of the receiver. The ray count of 106 was defined based on the ray sensitivity test. The optical performance of 86.07% was obtained when the receiver was positioned at focus. Later, the obtained distributed heat flux from raytracing was coupled in the CFD model using a user-defined function (UDF). The thermal performance was evaluated while considering heat losses from the receiver due to windy conditions and the absence of wind. For the 40 m2 parabolic dish, almost 65–78% of the absorbed solar heat was transferred to the heat transfer fluid in the receiver under varying tilt angles, wind speeds, and wind directions. The maximum thermal performance was 67.54% when the receiver was tilted at 45° in wind of 3 m/s. Moreover, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for statistical analysis, and it was found that wind speed emerged as the most influential factor in thermal performance, followed by tilt angle and wind direction. Lastly, the thermal performance of the present receiver was compared with that of other receivers, and the hyperbolic receiver was found to perform outstanding.