Design, manufacture and testing of fiberglass reinforced parabola trough for parabolic trough solar collectors

The design and manufacture of a smooth 90 rim angle fiberglass reinforced parabolic trough for parabolic trough solar collector hot water generation system by hand lay up method is described in this paper. The total thickness of the parabolic trough is 7 mm. The concave surface where the reflector is fixed is manufactured to a high degree of surface finish. The fiberglass reinforced parabolic trough was tested under a load corresponding to the force applied by a blowing wind with 34 m/s. Distortion of the parabola due to wind loading was found to be within acceptable limits. The thermal performance of the newly developed fiberglass reinforced parabolic collector was determined according to ASHRAE Standard 93 [ASHRAE Standard 93, 1986. Method of testing to determine the thermal performance of solar collectors. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Atlanta, GA]. The standard deviation of the distribution of the parabolic surface errors is estimated as 0.0066 rad from the collector performance test according to ASHRAE Standard 93 (1986), which indicates the high accuracy of the parabolic surface. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.