Experimental study of steam generation by parabolic trough concentrator with two axes tracking

Abstract EN

This paper describes an experimental model for estimating parabolic trough solar collector performance, as the Arduino micro-controller technology was applied to improve the optical and thermal efficiency of the system.

The receiving tubes of different internal diameters (2mm, 6mm) were implemented to evaluate system performance.

The practical investigation of the solar concentrator was conducted to generate steam at moderate temperatures, as the experiments were executed in Baghdad with geographical coordinates (33° 18' N, 44° 21' E) during specific days.

The results showed the effectiveness of small diameters, as the significant enhancement of thermal performance was at a flow rate of 8 L/h and receiver tube diameters of 2 mm, as the improvement was 30% compared to 6 mm tubes.