To address the issue of large circumferential temperature differences caused by non-uniform heating in parabolic parabolic trough solar collector tubes
a pyramidal inner-surface collector tube was designed by applying a stamping process to the inner wall of a traditional metal collector tube. The parametric effects of the different pyramid lengths
pyramid widths
and pyramid heights on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics
the circumferential maximum temperature difference
the intensity of secondary flow
and the local heat transfer characteristics in the pyramidal inner-surface collector tube were analyzed comparatively using a numerical method. The results show that: the introduction of pyramid-shaped roughness elements enhances the heat transfer performance of traditional collector tubes
with the structural parameters having varying degrees of influence on the flow and heat transfer characteristics; and the maximum evaluation factor of heat transfer enhancement named as reaches 1.59
and compared with a traditional collector tube
the maximum circumferential temperature difference with the pyramidal enhanced tube is reduced by up witha 51.68%; and the local Nusselt number on the inner wall surface changes periodically along the circumferential direction
with its peak values occurring at a specific location between the apex and the base of the pyramid elements; the variation trends of the cross-sectional average Nusselt number and secondary flow intensity along the flow direction are consistent
and the variation trend of average Nusselt number and secondary flow intensity with increasing Reynolds number are also consistent
which indicates that the intensity of secondary flow in the pyramidal inner-surface collector tube determines its heat transfer intensity.
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