Design, Fabrication and Performance Testing of PTC with Helical Coil Receiver

In the present study, a solar collector is designed and constructed. The collector consists of parabolic trough of mild steel sheet and a helical coil receiver fabricated using copper tube positioned at the focal line of the trough. The copper tube is coated with black paint to increase its absorptivity. The system is fabricated and tested at Babylon University site in Hila city Iraq (32.4°latitude, 44.4° longitudinal) using water as working fluid under outdoor condition. The system is operated as a closed loop water circulation with a storage tank of 30 liter capacity contains 8 liters of water. Tests are carried out during the period from October to November 2018. The tests are performed with different circulation flow rate (1,1.5,2) l/min. Results show that the maximum helical coil surface temperature with non-circulation is 107.2 °C at 1.00 PM from 25th September and 75 °C with circulation at flow rate 1.5 l/min at 2.00 PM from 9th October. The maximum mean storage water temperature is 73.8 °C for flow rate 1.5 l/min at 2.00 PM from 9th October, 70.5°C for flow rate 1 l/min at 2.00 PM from 8th October and 69.1 °C for flow rate 2 l/min at 1.50 PM from 24th October.