Thermal Stress Analysis of Absorber Tube for a Parabolic Collector under Quasi-Steady State Condition

The design of parabolic trough collectors is based on the concentration of solar heat flux on its absorber tube. This may be subjected to high thermal stresses which could cause deflection of the absorber tube and failure of its cover glass tube. Investigation of earlier studies on thermal gradient and thermal stresses demonstrates that so far, the issue is considered for steady state condition based on the assumption of constant solar heat flux distribution during the day hours. However, in practice, solar heat flux distribution on the receiver tube has continues changes with respect to time and deformation is basically transient. Due the low speed of sun during a day and for specific time intervals, the average solar radiation could be considered constant for thermal stress and deflection analysis. Hence, in this study, thermal gradients as well as thermal stresses in the absorber tube are numerically investigated in quasi steady condition. Due to the wide changes of solar radiation during a year, computations are performed for four specific days of Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumnal Equinox and Winter Solstice. To compute solar heat flux distribution, SolTrace software is used and three dimensional heat flux distribution is applied as an external boundary condition to calculate temperature distribution in the absorber tube. By using Von-Misses theory, maximum equivalent of total stress is computed. Maximum deflection is evaluated for various different inlet temperatures and hot oil mass flow rates in the common range of solar thermal power plants for atypical parabolic trough collector which is under construction in Shiraz, Iran.