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Fabrication and testing of a light weight solar concentrator

S Mahavar, A Bhardwaj, P Dashora

Abstract


Solar energy is the prime inexhaustible energy available to all. India is one of the sun’s most favoured nations, blessed with 5,000 trillion kWh/year insolation. Thus, investment in solar energy is a natural choice for India. Solar energy can be collected and utilized to generate electricity through photovoltaic system or to generate heat through solar thermal systems.
Different solar thermal appliances uses different solar collectors. Among those, concentrators are the most efficient way to collect solar radiation. A low price, light weight material with good reflectivity is desirable to decrease the cost and weight of solar concentrators and to reduce tracking complications. Considering this aspect present research work is focused on fabrication and testing of a light weight parabolic dish solar concentrator. This light weight solar concentrator (LWSC) (having 1.2 m diameter, 0.2 m height and focal length 0.45 m) is fabricated of iron supporting structure and six polymeric reflector sheets. Study of thermal performance of the system is done using two metallic disks coated with thin matt black paint. During experimental studies, azimuth-elevation tracking of this small system is done manually. Experimental studies done over a number of days show that with manual tracking of LWSC the highest temperature about 177 °C is achieved for steel receiver (0.057 m2) within 15 min under an average solar insolation of 850 W/m2. This study shows that polymeric reflector can be a suitable material to be used in large size solar concentrator to reduce weight of the system as well as tracking complications.

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/ijssm.v2i2.20

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