Numerical study on coupled fluid flow and heat transfer process in parabolic trough solar collector tube

A unified two-dimensional numerical model was developed for the coupled heat transfer process in parabolic solar collector tube, which includes nature convection, forced convection, heat conduction and fluid–solid conjugate problem. The effects of Rayleigh number (Ra), tube diameter ratio and thermal conductivity of the tube wall on the heat transfer and fluid flow performance were numerically analyzed. The distributions of flow field, temperature field, local Nu and local temperature gradient were examined. The results show that when Ra is larger than 105, the effects of nature convection must be taken into account. With the increase of tube diameter ratio, the Nusselt number in inner tube (Nu1) increases and the Nusselt number in annuli space (Nu2) decreases. With the increase of tube wall thermal conductivity, Nu1 decreases and Nu2 increases. When thermal conductivity is larger than 200 W/(m K), it would have little effects on Nu and average temperatures. Due to the effect of the nature convection, along the circumferential direction (from top to down), the temperature in the cross-section decreases and the temperature gradient on inner tube surface increases at first. Then, the temperature and temperature gradients would present a converse variation at h near p. The local Nu on inner tube outer surface increases along circumferential direction until it reaches a maximum value then it decreases again. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.