Comparative study of modified conical cavity receiver with other receivers for solar paraboloidal dish collector system.

Solar parabolic dish concentrators are one of the most efficient solar power conversion technologies. The cavity receivers are the most common type, used for reducing the heat losses from the receiver. In this paper, a novel cavity receiver is proposed, and the objective is to compare the novel modified conical cavity receiver with the existing cavity receivers such as cylindrical, conical and modified cavity receivers. The cavity receivers are designed for the parabolic dish of 4-m diameter which is installed at the National Institute of Technology Puducherry, India. Ray-tracing analysis was carried out to determine the size of the receiver. The analysis was carried out for various orientations of the receivers from 0 to 90° with a step size of 15° and also for the cavity temperatures: 300°C, 400°C, 500°C, 600°C and 700°C. Based on the results obtained, the modified conical cavity receiver is found to be the best design in terms of minimum heat losses compared to other receivers. The next best choices are found to be modified cavity, conical cavity and cylindrical cavity receiver. The whole analysis is conducted with a developed model in COMSOL Multiphysics.