Development and construction of a conical solar concentrator

This research work reports the development, construction and study of the performance of the conical shaped concentrator made from fabricated iron sheet of thickness 2mm. The inner side of the cone shape was line with strips of plane mirror cemented to the surface by the help of araldite mixed with sawdust. The concentrator has an aperture of 8050.20cm2 while the two solar absorber used for the study has surface area 790.60cm2 and 720.50cm2 with the concentration ratio being 9.50 and 10.60 respectively. The conical solar concentrator was tested under various operation condition, such as; different concentration ratio, static condition of the absorber fluid temperature against local time of the day showed that higher temperatures of the fluid were obtained on bright sunny days when the collector received beam radiation (highest temperature recorded =166oC) and a rapid decline of the fluids temperatures when a cloudy interception of the sun occurred.