Parabolic Trough Collector Prototypes for Low-temperature Process Heat

This book provides a technical overview of low-cost parabolic trough collector (PTCs) prototypes for low-temperature heat demand. It begins with a comprehensive but concise summary of the state-of-the-art in PTCs, and presents a detailed mathematical model of such systems. Subsequent chapters describe the construction and materials used in the manufacture of PTC prototypes, and offers technical solutions to overcome design problems. Finally, it provides an accessible guide to the standards used to test and evaluate the performance of PTCs. Offering a valuable resource to engineering researchers and practitioners, it is also suitable for students of solar thermal systems, renewable energy and applied physics.

We work in the field of solar energy since five years. In our Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (DIISM), we developed two prototypes of parabolic trough collectors and a test bench to evaluate the performances of such systems. We published one paper about the mathematical modelling of PTCs on the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, and one paper about our first prototype on Renewable Energy. Furthermore, we wrote a technical report about the adoption of PTCs for a private company, and presented works on the same topic in several Italian conferences. Nowadays, we are going to submit several papers with the results of numerical simulations about nanofluid-based PTCs to different journals and we are planning to test nanofluids as heat transfer fluids of such solar collectors.