Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Applied Thermal Engineering, cilt.286, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors (PTC) have sufficient ability to concentrate on solar radiation compared to other solar collectors; however, the heat transfer efficiency within the absorber tube is not at the desired level and is open to improvement. Intensive research is ongoing to increase thermal efficiency by adding structures such as turbulators, twisted tape, fins, obstacles, ribs, etc. to the absorber pipe. Additionally, the use of nanofluids instead of conventional working fluids also improves thermal performance, resulting in more efficient models. In this study, a novel type of turbulator was designed and numerically analyzed to improve the thermal performance characteristics of the absorber tube located at the focal point of the parabolic trough type collector. Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω turbulence model was used as the turbulence model in the numerical analysis. Validation of the study and mesh independence analyses were performed. Turbulator and without turbulator cases are compared by considering different parameters. According to the results obtained, the highest percentage increase in the heat transfer coefficient was realized as 55.97% at Reynolds 4000 with turbulator and Syltherm800-2% Al2O3 nanofluid. The highest percentage increase with the use of only nano-fluid was realized as 4.59% at Reynolds 20,000 with Syltherm800-2% Al2O3 nano-fluid.