Abstract

Effective solar receiver design is pivotal to improving the efficiency of concentrated solar collectors, thereby advancing sustainable energy development. This study investigates the impact of receiver configuration on the thermal and exergy performance of parabolic trough collectors and proposes adopting a commercially available copper-finned tube as the receiver. Notably, thermal efficiency improved when the flat corrugated fin was redesigned into an arc-shaped thin-profile configuration. Specifically, the arc-shaped fin receiver outperformed its flat-fin counterpart, achieving thermal efficiencies of 75.8% and 68.5% at a mass flow rate of 0.1 kg/s, respectively. At a lower flow rate of 0.033 kg/s, peak water temperatures of 80 °C and 72 °C were recorded for the arc-shaped and flat-fin receivers, respectively. Comparative analysis further revealed that the arc-shaped fin yielded an average heat transfer coefficient 19–33.9% higher than that of the flat-fin receiver. Furthermore, at 0.033 kg/s, the arc-shaped fin demonstrated superior exergy efficiency, with peak and average values of 7.2% and 4.2%, respectively, compared with 5.2% and 3.0% for the flat-fin receiver. These findings highlight the potential of arc-shaped copper-finned tube receivers to optimize parabolic trough collector performance, offering a promising avenue for advancing sustainable energy development.

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