Heat flux and temperature measurements on glass envelope and bellows of parabolic trough receivers

Congratulations to Simon Caron, Marc Röger and Johannes Pernpeintner from the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Solar Research for their recent publication “Heat Flux and Temperature Measurements on Glass Envelope and Bellows of Parabolic Trough Receivers”.

In their study, they used greenTEG’s gSKIN® XP Heat Flux Sensors to measure and characterise heat losses from a solar thermal collector. Comparing the results to a reference test bench, they found a good agreement of data.

Additionally, using heat flux sensors instead of temperature sensors allowed them to pinpoint areas of higher thermal losses, thus allowing future manufacturers to focus on insulating specific areas of the solar collector. Additionally, these heat flux sensors only need to be mounted on the exterior of the solar collector, opening up the possibility for their deployment in in-situ diagnostics and investigations for solar thermal collectors under field conditions.

Full publication: AIP Conference Proceedings, 2018

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