Abstract
A numerical study is performed to investigate the effect of sun tracking on the thermal performance of the evacuated compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) collectors. The evacuated CPC collectors consist of a two-layered glass tube, a copper tube and a reflector. The collector has a copper tube as an absorber and a reflector inside a glass tube. The water is used as a working fluid. The length and the diameter of the glass tube are 1,700mm and 70mm, respectively. The length and the diameter of the copper tube are 1,700mm and 25.4mm, respectively. Ray tracing analysis is carried out in order to compare absorbed heat fluxes on the absorber surface of the stationary and tracking collectors. The collected energy is calculated and compared with that on a fixed surface tilted at $35^{\circ}$ on the ground and facing south. The results indicate that the collected solar energy of the sun tracking system is significantly larger than that of a stationary collector. The sun tracking evacuated CPC collectors show a better performance with an increase in the thermal efficiency of up to 14% compared with an identical stationary collector.
