Study of Optical and Thermal Performance of a Three Dimensional Compound Parabolic Concentrator (3D CPC) for Absorber

A Focusing type collectors like compound parabolic concentrator are used Considerable research work has been carried out to improve the performance of the two dimensional compound parabolic concentrator (2D CPC). The three dimensional. compound parabolic concentrator (3D CPC) was found to more efficient than two dimensional compound parabolic concentrator because of the higher concentrator ratio The optical efficiency was estimated theoretically and compared with the experimental value. Experimentally determined values of optical and thermal efficiencies were in good agreement with theoretically predicated value.The experimental results show that the optical efficiency obtained from 3D CPC (0.626) was significantly higher than that of the 2D CPC (0.570). In addition to that time constant of the concentrator was also calculated.The time constant of the 3D CPC (431s) was high than the 2D CPC (110s). An attempt was made to generate low pressure steam using 3D CPC in the in situ steam generation mode The efficiency of the steam generation was about 38% which was one of the possible applications of 3D CPC module.