Performance Analysis of Evacuated Tube Heat Pipe Solar Water Heating System using Nanofluid coupled with parabolic Trough Concentrator

Utilization of solar energy is the major hurdle in the application of thermal energy. Solar energy is one of the cleaner forms of renewable energy resources which achieve the need of people in the field of thermal energy. The study shows the utilization solar energy with the help experimental setup involve of parabolic through collector concentrating solar energy on evacuated tube heat pipe which transforming radiation energy into useful heat. Currently use of nanofluids in solar thermal technology for heat transfer enhancement is focus of interest. Experimental setup consist four heat pipes out of that two as a single unit and other two as another unit. The working fluid for each unit of heat pipe is water and Al2O3 respectively. Parabolic trough collectors concentrate solar radiation on heat pipe through evacuated tube. The experiment conducted for 12 days with different climatic condition. Temperatures at the outlet measured for both the system. The heat absorption rate was more in the unit consisting Al2O3 as a working fluid inside the heat pipe. Thermal performance of nanofluid contains heat pipe evacuated tube solar collector coupled with PTC is improved than conventional heat pipe evacuated tube solar collector with PTC. The enhancement in instantaneous collector efficiency obtained is 19-21%. At the same time effect of inclination angle and mass flow rate on performance of heat pipe evacuated tube collector is also studied.