A Simulation Based Study on the Effect of Metallic and Non-metallic Nano-particles on the Performance of Parabolic Trough Concentrator

Muhammad Asif Ali; Muhammad Uzair

doi:10.36561/ING.25.10

Authors

Muhammad Asif Ali NED University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistán https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9002-4902
Muhammad Uzair NED University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistán https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2348-5798

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36561/ING.25.10

Keywords:

Parabolic trough concentrator, Metallic nanoparticles, Non-metallic nanoparticles, Water-based nanofluids, Heat transfer enhancement

Abstract

This research investigates the simulation-based performance of metallic and non-metallic nanoparticles, along with water-based heat transfer fluids, used in parabolic trough concentrator. Its main goal is to analyze the performance enhancement of the concentrator, divided into two phases. The first phase focuses on validating the experimental setup using computational fluid dynamics through ANSYS software. The same validated simulation model is then utilized to assess the performance of solar parabolic trough concentrator with different metallic and non-metallic, plus water-based nanofluids. The study utilizes water alone, along with copper, gold, and silver, and two non-metallic nanoparticles, alumina oxide, and copper oxide, in varying volumetric concentrations from 1% to 3%. The simulation analysis, conducted at a speed of 0.12 m/s, reveals that the highest average temperature increase is observed in the case of alumina + water-based nanofluid at 3% volumetric concentration, with a maximum average heat transfer of 351.89 watts. Additionally, the silver + water-based nanofluid demonstrates the highest average value of the coefficient of convective heat transfer at 88055.5 W/(m2 K). The gold + water-based nanofluid shows a higher average value of the Reynolds Number at 4352.268, while the maximum Nusselt number is observed with alumina oxide + water-based nanofluid, measuring 1.7698.

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