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International Conference on Mechanical, Automotive and Aerospace Engineering 2016 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 184 (2017) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/184/1/012044

International Conference on Recent Trends in Physics 2016 (ICRTP2016) IOP Publishing

Journal of Physics: Conference Series 755 (2016) 011001 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/755/1/011001

Improvement Design of Parabolic Trough

S. I. Ihsan1,a*, M. A. I. M. Safian1, M. A. M. Taufek1 and A.K.M. Mohiuddin1

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia,
P.O.Box 10, 50728 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

E-mail: asihsan@iium.edu.my

Abstract. The performance of parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) has been evaluated
using different heat transfer working fluids; namely water and SAE20 W50 engine oil. New
and slightly improved PTSC was developed to run the experimental study. Under the
meteorological conditions of Malaysia, authors found that PTSC can operate at a higher
temperature than water collector but the performance efficiency of collector using engine oil is
much lower than the water collector.

1. Introduction
Energy production in Malaysia is based on fuels and natural gas. By using fuels or natural gas, it is
easy to generate power or electricity for many purposes but it will cause big consequences to the
environment such as air pollutants due to the production of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
These cases will lead to human made natural disaster such as greenhouse effect, thinning of the ozone
layer, acid rain and many other bad effects. In order to conserve the environments, other alternatives
must be taking into consideration such as renewable energy. For example, the main source of energy
on earth which is from the sun can be converted to electricity by using solar thermal collector which is
known as Parabolic Trough Solar Collector. Sun will produce the ultraviolet rays to earth. Despite of
polluting the environment with many harmful gases, the energy from the sun can be used to generate
electricity. This research will be focused on the usage of Parabolic Trough Solar Collector in these
modern days in order to conserve the environments.
In understanding the working mechanisms of a parabolic trough collector, solar radiation coming
from the will hit the parabolic trough’s mirror. In two dimensional (2-D), the incident rays will be
reflected to one focus point due to the shape of a parabola. In three dimensional (3-D) views, the
reflected rays from the solar radiation will produce one line which is called the focal line. The position
where the focal line exists will be occupied with the heat collection elements consisting of receiver
tube, heat transfer fluid (HTF) inside the receiver tube. The solar energy will be absorbed by the
receiver tube and the heat collected is transferred to the HTF. This process is called the conversion of
solar energy to thermal energy. Lastly, the HTF can be used for many application purposes such as
generating electricity, production of hot water and many other applications.
According to Anam [1], “Parabolic trough is one of the most popular and demanding concentrated
solar thermal technology available nowadays. It is efficient and environment friendly. But, the present

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International Conference on Mechanical, Automotive and Aerospace Engineering 2016 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 184 (2017) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/184/1/012044

day parabolic trough holds some deficiencies which if solved can increase the efficiency more”. The
parabolic trough consists of parabolic shaped trough frame, base that holds the trough, reflective
coating or mirrors, heat collection tube, and fluids.

2. Parabolic trough design

A modified design of parabolic trough collector from the one developed by the previous student [2] is
used for comparison in this work. Specifically, a tempered glass cover is added to the trough in order
to trap solar radiation reflected from the surface to reduce heat losses. The designs are shown in
Figure 1. The HTF is filled in the collector tube and the temperature and duration of exposure are
measured. The process will be repeated for several times for several days. Two types of HTF are used
in the experiment, which are water and engine oil. Their required properties are shown in Table 1. In
the previous design, the instantaneous thermal efficiencies obtained were around 24% for water and
18-19% for engine oil [2]. With the introduction of the glass cover, the efficiency is expected to
increase.

(a) Previous design [2] (b) Modified design

Figure 1. Parabolic trough solar collector design

Table 1. Heat Transfer Fluid Properties [3]

SAE20 W50
Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) Water
engine oil
Specific Heat (kJ/kg oC) 4.167 2.34
Density (kg/m3) 1000 824

3. Results and discussion

For each working fluid, the experiments were repeated five times on different days to ensure
consistency of data. The experiments were conducted on the roof top of E3, Kulliyyah of Engineering
building since the area is flat and unshaded. Solar irradiation is measured using pyranometer available
in the lab. Figures 2 and 3 shows the temperature increase in the collector and the solar irradiation, for
water and engine oil as the HTF, respectively.

2
International Conference on Mechanical, Automotive and Aerospace Engineering 2016 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 184 (2017) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/184/1/012044

Temperature rise and Irradiation

vs Time
Fluid Temperature (C)
Environment Temperature (C) inside PTSC
Irradiation (W/m2)
150 1000

Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)

800
100
600
400
50
200
0 0
11:42:43 11:45:36 11:48:29 11:51:22 11:54:14
Time
(1)
Temperature rise and Irradiation vs
Temperature rise and Irradiation
Time
150 1000 150
vs Time 1000
Irradiation (W/m2)

Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)

800 800
100 100
600 600
400 400
50 50
200 200

0 0 0 0
11:57:07 12:00:00 12:02:53 12:05:46 12:08:38 12:11:31 12:14:24
Time Time
(2) (3)

Temperature rise and Irradiation Temperature rise and Irradiation vs

150 vs Time 1000
150
Time 1000
Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)

Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)

800 800
100 100
600 600
400 400
50 50
200 200
0 0 0 0
10:55:12 11:02:24 11:09:36 11:19:41 11:22:34 11:25:26 11:28:19
Time Time
(4) (5)

Figure 2. Temperature rise and irradiation vs time for water based collector

3
International Conference on Mechanical, Automotive and Aerospace Engineering 2016 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 184 (2017) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/184/1/012044

Temperature rise and Irradiation vs

Time
Fluid Temperature (C)
Environment Temperature (C) inside PTSC
Irradiation (W/m2)

200 800

Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)
150 600

100 400

50 200

0 0
10:55:12 11:02:24 11:09:36
Time
(1)

Temperature rise and Irradiation Temperature rise and Irradiation vs

vs Time Time
200 800 200 800
Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)

Temperature (C)

Irradiation (W/m2)
150 600 150 600
100 400 100 400
50 200 50 200

0 0 0 0
11:16:48 11:24:00 11:31:12 10:55:12 11:02:24 11:09:36
Time Time
(2) (3)

Temperature rise and Irradiation vs Temperature rise and Irradiation vs

Time Time
200 1000 200 1000 Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)
Irradiation (W/m2)
Temperature (C)

150 150

100 500 100 500

50 50

0 0 0 0
11:24:00 11:31:12 11:38:24 11:45:36 11:45:36 11:52:48 12:00:00
Time Time
(4) (5)

Figure 3. Temperature rise and irradiation vs time for engine oil based collector

As expected, the temperature in the working fluid increases as the parabolic trough is exposed to
the sun. Complete data collected are summarized in Table 2 and 3 for both water and engine oil
working fluid, respectively. The performance of parabolic trough solar concentrator was determine by
obtaining values of instantaneous thermal efficiency, useful energy and the temperature of heat
transfer fluid after being exposed to irradiation. The useful energy 𝑄𝑢 is calculated from the
measurement of initial and final temperatures and the fluid mass, 𝑚𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑 as follows [4].

The useful energy, 𝑄 𝑚 ( )

4
International Conference on Mechanical, Automotive and Aerospace Engineering 2016 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 184 (2017) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/184/1/012044

The instantaneous thermal efficiency,

Table 2. Summary of experimental results using water as the HTF

Experiment no 1 2 3 4 5
Duration (s) 402 240 240 517 336
Average Solar Irradiation (W/m2) 801.2 891.7 860.2 624.5 675.2
Initial Temperature (oC) 36.7 35.9 39.4 33.3 36.9
Final Temperature (oC) 100 100 100 100 100
Temperature inside PTSC (oC) 65.7 64.5 68.3 64.4 66.7
Useful Energy Collected (kJ) 126.3 127.9 120.9 133.1 125.9
Total Solar Energy (kJ) 322.1 214.0 206.4 322.9 226.9
Instantaneous Thermal Efficiency (%) 39.2 59.8 58.6 41.2 55.5

Table 3. Summary of experimental results using SAE20 W50 Engine oil as the HTF
Experiment no 1 2 3 4 5
Duration (s) 505 492 545 525 543
Average Solar Irradiation (W/m2) 652.4 692.7 755.2 782.2 883.8
Initial Temperature (oC) 36.9 36.5 35.8 36.3 35.4
Final Temperature (oC) 144.6 143.1 142.3 144.3 145.3
Temperature inside PTSC (oC) 62.4 63.6 62.5 63.7 67.9
Useful Energy Collected (kJ) 120.7 119.4 119.3 121.0 123.1
Total Solar Energy (kJ) 329.5 340.8 411.6 410.7 479.9
Instantaneous Thermal Efficiency (%) 36.6 35.0 29.0 29.5 25.7

It can be observed from the tables that, even though the value varies from one experiment to
another, trough with water as the HTF has consistently higher instantaneous efficiency compared to
engine oil indicating that water is more suitable for low temperature thermal recovery application.
Comparing to the performance obtained by the previous student [2], results also indicate significant
thermal efficiency improvement is obtained by using the modified parabolic trough. This is mainly
attributed to the fact that heat losses to the surrounding through convection is prevented by using the
glass cover.

4. Conclusions
The study found that for low temperature thermal recovery application, water is more suitable HTF
compared to SAE20 W50. Significant increase in the instantaneous efficiency from the previous
results by Mohd Taufek [2] was obtained through glass cover by reducing as much as possible heat
losses to the surroundings.

Acknowledgements
The work is funded by the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Research Initiative Grant
Scheme (RIGS). The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, IIUM for the support to carry out this work.

References
[1] Anam, K. (2012). An Improved Model for Solar Parabolic Trough. International Conference on
Informatics, Electronics & Vision (ICIEV), 2012, 420-423.

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International Conference on Mechanical, Automotive and Aerospace Engineering 2016 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 184 (2017) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/184/1/012044

[2] Mohd Taufek, M. (2015). Design and Analysis of Performance Trough Thermal Collector
Performance. Final Year Project Report.
[3] Thermophysical Properties: Engine Oil, Unused. (2011, November 13). Retrieved from
Thermal - Fluids Central:
https://www.thermalfluidscentral.org/encyclopedia/index.php/Thermophysical_Properties:_
Engine_Oil,_Unused
[4] Cengel, Y. A., Ghajar, A. J., & Kanoglu, M. (2011). Fundamental of Thermal Radiation. Heat
and Mass Transfer Fundamentals and Applications. New York: Mc Graw Hill.
[5] Iqbal, S., Iqbal, U., Khan, M. U., Saeed, M., & Waqas, A. (2014). Design, Fabrication and
Analysis of Solar Parabolic Trough Collector for Steam Engine. Robotics and Emerging
Allied Technologies in Engineering (iCREATE), 2014 International Conference on, 296-
299.
[6] The Basics of Synthetic Oil Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved from Machinery Lubrication:
http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/28671/basics-of-syntic-oil-technology