DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF COMPOUND PARABOLICCONCENTRATING SOLAR COLLECTOR WITH FLAT PLATE ABSORBER

In this research work 2-D CPC (Compound Parabolic Concentrator) with flat plate absorber and two parabolic reflectors is first designed and then fabricated for thermal performance analysis. Here the incident rays, after reflection from the reflector, are not focused at a point but are simply collected on a line of absorber surface. Acrylic sheets are provided to reduce the heat loss. Flat plate collectors have been widely used for application that demand temperature up to 100oC and large amount of research efforts are already made. For medium temperature range (100- 300oC) application, concentrating type collectors are suitable. For 2-D CPC, concentration ratio is generally in the range 2 to 10.CPC is generally oriented in E-W direction.The top portion of the reflector does not intercept much radiation, so the CPC is truncated to 2/3 of its full height.Truncation saves a large amount of reflector material with only a little loss in concentration ratio.