Modified mathematical model for evaluating the performance of water-in-glass evacuated tube solar collector considering tube shading effect

The aim of this paper is to introduce a procedure for simulating the absorbed solar radiation and heat transfer process in water-in-glass evacuated tube solar collectors. The procedure is developed to calculate the daily utilized solar energy and outlet collector temperature for different tilt angles, collector azimuth angles and geometric parameters without requirement for any experimental factor determination. Total absorbed solar radiation is evaluated by integrating the flat-plate solar collector performance equations over the tube circumference taking into account the shading of the adjacent tubes and variance of transmissivity–absorptivity product with the incidence angle of radiation. The heat transfer into the collector fluid is evaluated by subtracting the heat loss from the total absorbed solar radiation. Comparison between calculated and measured tank temperature shows a good agreement between them under different heating loads. Performance of solar collector at different tilt angles, collector Azimuth angles, tubes spacing and collector mass flow rate is investigated theoretically.