Thermal performance of inserting hybrid nanofluid in parabolic trough collector

Abstract

Abstract In this work, the thermal performance of using hybrid nanofluid of Ceria oxide and multi-walled carbon nanotube-based MOL 68 in the receiver tube of parabolic trough collector is simulated numerically. The influence of using this nanofluid under various volume concentrations and different Reynold numbers is solved numerically using computational fluid dynamics. The turbulent model's analysis is carried out based on k–ϵ re-normalization group and employed to find the Nusselt number and the heat transfer coefficients. The model results were validated with the previous correlation, which were used to evaluate the Nusselt number. The results showed that hybrid nanofluid enhances the heat transfer characteristics of the parabolic trough collector in comparison with the base fluid. Furthermore, even better heat transfer characteristics can be achieved with an increased volume concentration of the modified nanofluids.