Investigation of the behavior of a heating system coupled to parabolic trough solar collector system

Abstract

The objective of this work is to study the thermal behavior of a solar heating system using an active layer, integrated in a wall and supplied with hot water by a parabolic trough solar collector (PTC). The prototype includes a PTC collector with a surface area of 1.8m2, a tank and an active layer integrated in a wall. A complete simulation model using the TRNSYS 16 simulation software has been established. Simulation tests under the climatic conditions of the city of Errachidia located in southeastern Morocco show the temperature variations in the different components of the installation as well as the useful energy gained during the three coldest months (December, January and February). In addition, an evaluation study of the system's performance with effect of different values of the reflectivity of PTC collector mirror was carried out. The results obtained show that the PTC efficiency increased from 0.41 to 0.63 when the reflectivity of the collector mirror increased from 0.6 to 0.9 for the three heating months.