Study on the collection efficiency of parabolic trough solar collector

In this paper, the heat collection efficiency of the parabolic trough solar collector (PTC) with arbitrary orientation and tilt angle is analyzed, the formulae for calculating collection efficiency are given and relevant calculations and discussion are made. The typical solar beam radiation data of three cities with different latitudes are used for calculating the daily average collection efficiency, the results are compared with theoretical values. It is indicated through the analysis that the results obtained by using typical solar beam radiation (typical results) are smaller than theoretical values in winter; besides, with the increasing of latitude, the extent that the typical results being smaller than the theoretical values turns bigger. To prove the accuracy of theoretical model, the test experiments were conducted with a five-meter long PTC system. It is shown that the results matched well with the theoretical results. The present study work can provide some useful references for the simulation and calculation of collection efficiency of PTC system in different regions.