Numerical and experimental investigation on a new type of compound parabolic concentrator solar collector

In order to improve the thermal efficiency, reduce the heat losses and achieve high freezing resistance of the solar device for space heating in cold regions, a new type of serpentine compound parabolic concentrator solar collector is presented in this paper, which is a combination of a compound parabolic concentrator solar collector and a flat plate solar collector. A detailed mathematical model for the new collector based on the analysis of heat transfer is developed and then solved by the software tool Matlab. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data and the maximum deviation is 8.07%, which shows a good agreement with each other. The experimental results show that the thermal efficiency of the collector can be as high as 60.5%. The model is used to predict the thermal performance of the new collector. The effects of structure and operating parameters on the thermal performance are mathematically discussed. The numerical and experimental results show that the new collector is more suitable to provide low temperature hot water for space heating in cold regions and the mathematical model will be much helpful in the designing and optimizing of the solar collectors. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.