Thermal properties of high temperature vacuum receivers used for parabolic trough solar thermal power system

The receiver's emittance and vacuum pressure are the two of great significance issues on the heat-loss which is the main factor reducing the efficiency of the parabolic though systems. In this paper, the thermal steady-state equilibrium method was used to test the receivers' heat-loss. The receivers with increasing emittance were tested to study the variation of heat-loss. Meanwhile, the variable vacuum pressure in the annulus that affects the efficiency of the system was investigated. The influence of vacuumizing rate and getters on the vacuum pressure and heat-loss were discussed. The result shows that the emittance and vacuum pressure affect the receiver's heat-loss dramatically, and the emittance is the major influence factor on the thermal properties. The receiver with 0.08 emittance and 10−3 Pa vacuum pressure has a satisfactory heat-loss of 215.6 W/m at 400 °C. The analysis further reveals that the synergistic effect of both emittance and vacuum pressure on the heat-loss can be reflected by the packaging temperature of the glass tube, and a fitting formula has been established to estimate the receivers' heat-loss according to the packaging temperature of the glass tube.