THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A MODIFIED COMPOUND PARABOLIC CONCENTRATING SOLAR COLLECTOR USING OIL-BASED NANOFLUIDS

• Main Author: AKHTER, JAVE
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/id/eprint/24702/1/Javed%20Akhter_G03559.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/id/eprint/24702/

Thermal oils, generally used as heat transfer fluids (HTFs) in the medium temperature compound parabolic concentrating (CPC) collectors, bear weak thermal properties that negatively affect their performance thereby creating a major hurdle in the successful application at industrial scale. The emergence of nanofluids has shown promising results in improving the output of non-concentrating solar collectors. However, the performance of CPC collectors employing oil-based nanofluids is rarely studied. Therefore, this research was aimed to investigate the thermal effectiveness of oil-based nanofluids on the performance of a modified CPC collector. The main objectives were to develop and evaluate optical behavior of a modified CPC collector under different configurations, examine its thermal performance theoretically and experimentally using oil-based nanofluids. A multiphase methodology was devised to accomplish the outlined objectives.