INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH

Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028

Published online 11 February 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/er.3010

Heat losses from parabolic trough solar collectors

A. Mohamad1,*,, J. Orfi2 and H. Alansary2
1

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, CEERE, Calgary, AB, T2N1N4, Canada
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KSU, Riyadh, KSA

SUMMARY
Parabolic trough solar collector usually consists of a parabolic solar energy concentrator, which reects solar energy into an
absorber. The absorber is a tube, painted with solar radiation absorbing material, located at the focal length of the concentrator,
usually covered with a totally or partially vacuumed glass tube to minimize the heat losses. Typically, the concentration ratio
ranges from 30 to 80, depending on the radius of the parabolic solar energy concentrator. The working uid can reach a
temperature up to 400
C, depending on the concentration ratio, solar intensity, working uid ow rate and other parameters.
Hence, such collectors are an ideal device for power generation and/or water desalination applications. However, as the length
of the collector increases and/or the uid ow rate decreases, the rate of heat losses increases. The length of the collector may
reach a point that heat gain becomes equal to the heat losses; therefore, additional length will be passive. The current work
introduces an analysis for the mentioned collector for single and double glass tubes. The main objectives of this work are to
understand the thermal performance of the collector and identify the heat losses from the collector. The working uid, tube
and glass temperatures variation along the collector is calculated, and variations of the heat losses along the heated tube are
estimated. It should be mentioned that the working uid may experience a phase change as it ows through the tube. Hence,
the heat transfer correlation for each phase is different and depends on the void fraction and ow characteristics. However,
as a rst approximation, the effect of phase change is neglected. Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEY WORDS
solar energy; trough collector; heat losses; thermal system analysis
Correspondence
*A. Mohamad, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, CEERE, Calgary, AB, T2N1N4, Canada.

E-mail: mohamad@ucalgary.ca
Received 27 June 2012; Revised 5 November 2012; Accepted 4 December 2012

1. INTRODUCTION
In general, solar collectors can be classied into three
categories, Point collector (high temperature, order of
1000
C or more), line collector (intermediate temperature,
order of 300
C or more) and plane collector (low temperature, order of 100
C or less). Point collectors usually consist
of a parabolic mirror, which concentrates the solar radiation
into a small area (point), or it consists of many mirrors
directing the solar energy into a small region. Those mirrors
are usually monitored electronically. This type of collector
needs a sophisticated solar tracking mechanism and usually
applied in power generation, metal melting, hydrogen
production, etc. The second type of the collector is the line
collector, which usually consists of a parabolic cylinder that
directs solar radiation into a tube (line), located at the focal
length of the collector. The tube is coated with solar absorbing material and covered with a glass tube. The gap between
the glass tube and tube is fully or partially evacuated from air
to reduce the heat losses. Also, for better performance, the
absorber is covered with selective materials and the glass
20

tube coated with anti-reective material. This type of

collector can reach 300
C or more depending on the concentration ratio, ow rate and solar intensity. The tracking
mechanism for this type of collectors is simpler than the
tracking mechanism for the point collectors. It has been
applied to power generation in many locations around
the world [15]. State of art reviews of the trough solar
collector applications for power generation with history
are given by Price et al. [6]; Fernandez-Garcia et al. [7]
and Garcia et al. [8]. Using natural convection heat tube
integrated with solar trough collector experimentally
investigated by Zhang et al. [9]. They claimed that their
system achieved a thermal efciency of about 38%.
Application of a trough solar collector for water disinfection is given by Malato et al. [10]. Also, it is an ideal
device for water desalinations, where the salted water
can be ashed after passing through the collector. The
evaporated water can be condensed and used as fresh
water after certain processes. Flat plate type of solar
collectors usually consists of a at plate to absorb solar
radiation with a glass cover. In general, the at plate
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

collector does not need the solar tracing mechanism. This

type of collector usually operates at temperature of order of
100
C. However, for vacuumed glass tubes and if the solar
intensity is high, the temperature may reach about 150
C.
The more attractive feature of this type of collector is that it
does not need the solar tracking mechanism. The main
application of this type of collector is for domestic water
and space heating. Different types of solar collectors and
their applications were reviewed by Kalogirou [11].
In this paper, the second type of the collector (line) is
considered. However, the model developed can be applied
even for at plate with vacuumed tubed collector, by
setting the concentration ratio to order of unity. Hence,
the model developed in this research is targeted by both
types of collectors.
Espana and Rodriguez [12] developed a mathematical
model for simulating the performance of a trough collector.
They assumed that the absorber is a bare tube exposed to
ambient conditions. In other words, the absorbing tube is
not covered with glass tube.
Grald and Kuehn [13] studied the thermal performance
of a cylindrical trough solar collector with innovative
porous absorber receiver. They solved uid dynamic and
energy equations using nite difference method. The
system is designed to reduce the heat losses as much as
possible by allowing cold water pass through the outer
layer of the absorber, and hot uid extracted from the core
of the absorber. The estimated thermal efciency of the
system is about 60% for a low temperature difference
between the uid outlet temperature and ambient temperature. However, the efciency of the system drops to about
30% for high temperature differences.
Kalogirou et al. [3] published an analysis for hot water
ow through a trough solar collector with water ashing
system. The results of analysis indicated that about 49%
of the solar energy can be used for steam generation.
Odeh et al. [14] presented an analysis for water ow
inside the absorber tube as an application for direct steam
generation. The analysis considered phase change of the
liquid water to steam. The convective heat transfer coefcient is assumed to be a function of steam quality and
Shahs equation was used [15,16]. The model predictions
were evaluated against Sandia Laboratory tests of LS2
collector [1]. Odeh and Morrison [17] examined the
performance of solar trough collector integrated with water
storage system to compensate the intermittency of the solar
energy. Performance of a combo system (photovoltaic and
thermal) was reported by Coventry [18] by using a trough
collector covered with photovoltaic materials with a concentration ratio of 37. It is found that the thermal efciency of
the system can reach 58%, and electric efciency is around
11%. Yan et al. [19,20] simulated the thermal performance
of a solar trough system used for steam generation for a
power-plant or to heat the feed water.
All the mentioned works did not illustrate the variation
of the local heat losses from the collector, which is the
subject of this work. It is essential to understand the
variation of heat losses along the absorber tube to estimate
Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er

the length of the collector for a better performance. It is

expected that the heat losses increase as the collector
length increases because the temperature difference
between the collector and ambient increases. At a certain
location along the collector, the balance between heat
losses and collected energy may reach the equilibrium
conditions. Hence, beyond that location, extra length of
collector may be useless, or it has insignicant effect on
the operation of the collector. For example, the length
one of the trough solar collectors used for power generation in Spain is more than 100 m [21] and can reach about
785 m [22]. The current work analyzes heat transfer from a
trough solar collector with single and double glass covers.
The gaps between glass covers and between the glass cover
and absorber are assumed to be evacuated from air. The main
objective of the work to identify the losses associated with
the trough solar collector, especially for high-temperature
application. As a fact, the rate of heat losses increases as
the temperature difference between a system and ambient
increases. Hence, using a double glass cover may be
benecial to a certain temperature difference. Burkholder
and Kutscher [23] showed that heat losses per unit
collector length can reach about 250 W/m for collector
temperature of 400
C.

2. ANALYSIS
Schematic diagram of trough solar collector is shown in
Figure 1. Solar radiation is mainly absorbed at the outer
surface of the absorber tube as a heat. Part of the absorbed
heat transfers to the working uid by conduction through
tube wall and convection from the inner surface of the tube
to the uid. Other parts of the heat transfers as a loss by
radiation to the inner surface of the glass through the
vacuum and then by conduction from the inner surface of
the glass to the outer surface of the glass. The heat
dissipated to ambient from the outer surface of the glass

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the collector.

21

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

by two mechanisms, convection to the surrounding air and

by radiation to the surrounding surfaces (buildings and
sky). Figure 2 shows the thermal resistance diagram for
the heat transfer process, for single glass cover (a) and double
glass covers (b). Extra resistance is needed to be added to
model double glass covers, after R4 in the diagram.
By assuming that the surrounding surface temperature
is equal to the ambient air temperature, the model equation
for a single glass cover can be expressed as:
IatD

Tto  Tfb
Tto  Ts


R1 R2 R3 R4 R1 R1 1
5

(1a)

And for double glass covers:

IatD

Tto  Tfb
R1 R2

Tto  Ts

R3 R4 R3d R4d

R1
5


1 1

R6

(1b)

Energy balance for the working uid can be formulated as,

_
mc

dTfb Tto  Tfb

dx
R1 R2

_
mc

dTfb
Tto  Ts
I atD


1
dx
R3 R4 R1 R1
5

Equation (3) contains two unknowns, Tfb and Tto;

hence, there is need to solve equation (3) coupled with
equation (1).
The explicit forms for the thermal resistances are as follow:
1
R1
(4-a)
2p rti h
1
rto
ln
2pkt rti

 
1
1 1  eg rto

R3
2psrto et
eg
rgi
h

i1
Tt2 Tg2 Tt Tg
R2

1
rgo
ln
2p kg rgi

 
1
1 1  eg rgo

2psrgo et
eg
rgid
h

i1
2
Tg2 Tgd
Tg Tgd

R4
R3d

(2)

The left-hand side of the equation (1) represents the

total solar energy absorbed by the outer surface of the tube
per unit length. The rst term on the right-hand side of the
equation represents the rate of heat transfer to the uid
inside the tube, useful energy. The second term on the
right-hand side of the equation (1) represented the heat
losses to the ambient. The left-hand side of the equation
(2) represents useful rate of heat transferred to rise the
uid temperature as it passes through the tube.
The above equations are coupled and nonlinear
because the rate of heat transfer from the tube to glass
takes places by radiation. Also, the rate of heat to the
surrounding surfaces and sky takes place by radiation.
However, the above equation can be combined into one
equation by replacing the right-hand side of equation (2)
into the rst equations, yields

(3)

R4d

R5

(4-b)
(4-c)

(4-d)
(4-e)

1
rgod
ln
2p kg rgid

(4-f)

1
2p rgod ha

(4-g)

And
R6

E s 2 p rgod Tgod Ts

 2
Tgod Ts2

(4-h)

It is fair to assume that R2, R4 and R4d are negligible compared with other thermal resistances. Then, inner surface
temperature of the tube (Tti) is equal to the outer surface of
the tube (Tto). Also, the outer surface temperature of the glass
tube (Tgo) is equal to the inner surface temperature of the glass
cover (Tgi). Hence, equations (1) and (2) simplify to,

(a)

(b)
Figure 2. Thermal resistances diagram (a) single glass cover, (b) double glass covers.

22

Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

Tto  Tfb
Tto  Ts

1
1
R1
R3 R R1
6

and
_
mc

dTfb Tbo  Tfb

dx
R1

(6)

respectively. Yet, the above equations are not easy to solve

analytically because nonlinearity introduced by radiative heat
transfer (see R3 and R6). Hence, equations (5) and (6) are
needed to be solved iteratively, using nite difference method.
However, to close the solution, there is a need for another
equation to nd glass temperature (Tg), which is,
Tbo  Tg
Tbo  Ts

1
1
R3
R3 R5 R1
6

(7)

3. CALCULATING HEAT TRANSFER

COEFFICIENT
The rate of heat transfer for turbulent forced ow in a tube
is given by Dittus-Boelter correlation as [24],
Nu 0:023 Re Pr
0:8

solar intensity of 500 W/m2. Table I summarizes other

parameters used in the simulations.
Figure 3a shows the uid, absorber and glass cover
temperatures variation along the collector for the ow rate of
0.005 kg/s. For such a low ow rate, it is possible for the uid
to reach temperature of about 230
C for the collector with

Table I. Typical values for properties used in the simulation,

unless otherwise stated.
Property
Glass tube emissivity
Glass tube transmissivity
Absorber tube absorptivity
Absorber tube diameter (m)
Glass tube diameter (m)
Absorber length (m)
Ambient temperature (
C)
Inlet uid temperature (
C)
Typical solar intensity (W/m2)
Aperture length (m)
250

(8)

Where Nu=h dp/kf, Re= (4 m)/(m d p).

Convective heat transfer coefcient from the outer
surface of the glass tube to ambient air is calculated from
the following correlation,
ho 0:0191 0:006608 Vwind

Fluid
Tube
Glass

200

(9)

150

100

Where Vwind is wind velocity in m/s, and ho is in W/m2.K.

For double glass cover, the resistance R3 can be
replaced by two resistances (R3 and R3d), hence, R3 in
equations (5) and (7) replaced by,

50
0

Where subscript g1 and g2 stand for rst and second glass

covers, respectively. Also, for double glass cover, t in
equation (1) should be replaced by t2.

The results are presented for the aperture diameter of 1 and

3 m. The range of ow rate investigated is from 0.005 to
0.05 kg/s. All the simulations were done for a constant
Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er

15

Flow rate =0.005 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

10000

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

8000

20

100

80

6000

60

4000

40

2000

20

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

10

L (m)

a
(10)

Heat (W)


 
1
1 1  eg1 rto

2psrto et
eg1
rg1
h

i1
2
Tt2 Tg1
Tt Tg1

 
1
1
1  eg2 rg1

2psrg1 eg1
eg2
rg2
h

i1
2
2
Tg2
Tg1
Tg1 Tg2

0.9
0.94
0.94
0.05
0.10
20
30
30
500
3.0

Flow rate =0.005 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

1=3

R3

Value

10

15

% efficiency

(5)

T (C)

I a tD

0
20

x (m)
Figure 3. (a) Fluid, absorber and glass cover temperature variation along the collector. (b) Heat input, heat losses and efciency
of the collector as a function of collector length.

23

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

aperture of 1 m and 20 m long. However, the heat losses

increase as the length of the collector increases (Figure 3b).
For a collector of 10 m long, the thermal efciency of the
collector is about 60%. As the length of collector increase,
the heat losses increase because the temperature difference
between the absorber and ambient increase (Figure 3), and
efciency decreases to 40% for a collector length of 20 m.
The outlet temperature of the uid from the collector
decreases as the ow rate increase to 0.01 kg/s (Figure 4a).
The outlet uid temperature for the specied collector
reaches about 170
C for the ow rate of 0.01 kg/s compared
with 230
C for the ow rate of 0.005. However, the losses
decrease as the ow rate increase. Figure 4b illustrates the
heat losses and efciency of the collector as a function of
collector length for the ow rate of 0.01 kg/s. The thermal
efciency of the collector of length 20 m is about 60%
compared with 40% for ow rate of 0.005 kg/s. Further
increasing the ow rate to 0.05 kg/s decreases the uid outlet
temperature and increases the efciency of the collector, as
shown in Figure 5a and 5b, respectively. For such a high
ow rate, the outlet uid temperature is only about 70
C.

Such a low temperature is difcult to be utilized for power

generation or water desalination processes. The efciency
of power cycle is dictated by Carnot efciency,
Z1

Tc
Th

(11)

where Tc and Th are cold and hot absolute temperatures

bounding a system, respectively. Hence, as the absorber
temperature (Th) decreases, the efciency of power cycle
decreases. For instance, for temperature of 70
C (343 K)
and for ambient temperature of 20
C (293 K), the maximum
ideal efciency of the cycle is about 14.6%. In fact, even
such a low efciency is not achievable in real cycle. In
practical cycle, only about half of Carnot efciency is usually
achievable, i.e. about 7.0%.
Results for aperture of 3 m are shown in Figure 6a and 6b
for ow rate of 0.01 kg/s. The outlet temperature of the uid
can reach 370
C. Nevertheless, the losses also are high,
where the efciency drops to about 45%. The maximum
cycle efciency working with uid temperature of 370
C

200

80

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

Flow rate =0.05 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

Fluid
Tube
Glass

150

Fluid
Tube
Glass

T (C)

T (C)

60
100

40
50

15

20

20

80

60

4000

40

2000

20

10

15

15

20

100
Flow rate =0.05 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

6000

0
0

10

L (m)

10000

8000

0
20

x (m)
Figure 4. (a) Fluid, absorber and glass cover temperature variation along the collector. (b) Heat input, heat losses and efciency
of the collector as a function of collector length.

Heat (W)

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

100

% efficiency

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

8000

24

10000

Heat (W)

10

L (m)

80

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

6000

60

4000

40

2000

20

10

15

% efficiency

0
20

x (m)
Figure 5. (a) Fluid, absorber and glass cover temperature variation along the collector. (b) Heat input, heat losses and efciency
of the collector as a function of collector length.
Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

400
Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=3.0 m

350

Fluid
Tube
Glass

300

200
150
100
50
0

10

15

20

L (m)
Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=3.0 m

30000

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

25000

100

80

60
15000
40
10000

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

Fluid
Tube
Glass

200

20

5000
0

250

10

15

0
20

150

100

x (m)
Figure 6. (a) Fluid, absorber and glass cover temperature variation along the collector. (b) Heat input, heat losses and efciency
of the collector as a function of collector length.

50

Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er

10

15

20

L (m)

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=1.0 m

10000

100

80

8000

Heat (W)

(643 K) and with ambient temperature of 20
C (293) is about

54%. Practical cycle efciency may be about 30%.
In a summary, for high temperature application, the heat
losses increase drastically as the length of the collector
increases due to the fact that the temperature difference between the absorber and ambient increases. Therefore, it is
suggested that increasing the thermal resistance is necessary at least for collector length greater than 10 m, as the
results of losses analysis suggest. It is expected that using
double glass covers with vacuumed gaps may decrease
the losses and increase overall efciency of the collector.
It should be mentioned that with added extra glass layer,
the optical losses of the system also increase because the
glass absorbs and reects part of the incident solar radiation. In simulating double glass cover, the left-hand side
of equations (1) and (5) is multiplied by t. In other words,
the t in the mentioned equations is replaced by t2.
The results for a collector with double glass covers with
aperture of 1 m are presented for mass ow rate of 0.01 kg/s
(Figure 7a and 7b). It is possible to reach uid outlet temperature of 190
C, compared with 170
C for single glass cover

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

6000

60

4000

40

2000

20

10

15

% efficiency

Heat (W)

20000

% efficiency

T (C)

T (C)

250

collector, i.e. 20
C gain in the temperature. However, the

gain in efciency is only a few percent. The efciency for
aperture of 3 m is about 50%, and outlet uid temperature
is of about 400
C compared with 45% and 370
C for single
glass cover system (Figure 8a and 8b). Hence, there is some
gain by adding double glass layers compared with results of
single glass layer collector. The results suggested that it is not
economical or benecial to add double glass cover to the rst
part of the collector (at least to the rst 10 m). In the following section, the results of analysis for partial covering the
collector with second glass cover will be presented.
The results show that using double glass covers for
solar collectors of length of 10 or less is not that economical. However, it may be benecial to use double glass covers for collector length larger than 10 m. Hence, it may be a
good idea to use single glass cover for the rst 10 m and
double glass cover for any length beyond that.
Figure 9a and 9b show typical results for a collector with
three meter of aperture. The rst half (rst 10 m length) of the

0
20

x (m)
Figure 7. (a) Fluid, absorber and rst glass cover temperature
variation along the collector with double glass covers. (b) Heat
input, heat losses and efciency of the collector as a function
of collector length for a collector with double glazing covers.

25

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

450

450

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=3.0 m

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I =500 W/m^2, D=3.0 m

400

400
Fluid
Tube
Glass

350
300

T (C)

300

250
200

250
200

150

150

100

100

50

50
0

10

15

20

L (m)

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=3.0 m

25000

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

15

20

Flow rate =0.01 kg/s, I=500 W/m^2, D=3.0 m

30000
30000

10

L (m)

Heat Losses (W)

Heat Input (W)
Efficiency

100
25000

100

80

80

15000
40
10000
20

5000
0
0

10

15

Heat (W)

Heat (W)

60

% efficiency

20000
20000

60

15000
40

10000
20

5000
0

0
20

26

0
20

15

Figure 9. (a) Fluid, absorber and rst glass cover temperature

variation along the collector for a collector partially covered with
single glass. (b) Heat input, heat losses and efciency of the
collector as a function of collector length for a collector partially
covered with single glass layer.

25
Flow=0.01

Heat_loss*Flow (W.kg/s)

collector is covered with one glass layer, and the second half
is covered with double glass layers. The difference between
results of Figure 8 and 9 are not that signicant. Therefore,
collector with partially covered with single glass is recommended for high temperature applications.
For a given conditions, it is noticed that there is a
correlation between the mass ow rate and heat losses.
For instance, for I = 500 W/m2 and D = 1.0 m, different
mass ow rates multiplied by heat losses can be correlated
within 6% as shown in Figure 10.
Furthermore, effects of absorber diameter on the rate of
heat losses and efciency of the collector are examined
(Figure 11). As the absorber diameter increases, the heat
losses increases, consequently, the collector efciency
decreases. This is due to the fact that as the surface area of
the absorber tube increases, heat losses increase, where heat
loss is function of surface area. Also, for a given mass ow
rate, the uid ow velocity decreases as the tube diameter
increases. Hence, the Reynolds number also decreases, which
decrease the convective heat transfer to the working uid.

10

x (m)

x (m)
Figure 8. (a) Fluid, absorber and rst glass cover temperature
variation along the collector with double glass covers. (b) Heat
input, heat losses and efciency of the collector as a function
of collector length for a collector with double glazing covers.

% efficiency

T (C)

Fluid
Tube
Glass

350

20

Flow0.05
Flow=0.005

15

10

10

15

20

x (m)
Figure 10. Mass ow rate multiplied by heat losses from the
collector as a function of collector length for different mass ow
rates, I = 500 W/m2, D = 1.0 m.
Int. J. Energy Res. 2014; 38:2028 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/er

A. Mohamad, J. Or and H. Alansary

Heat losses from trough collectors

4000
3500

r=0.0125

3000

r=0.025

2500

r=0.05

2000
60

1500
1000

r=0.05

r=0.025

% efficiency

Heat Losses (W)

80

r=0.0125

500
0

10

15

40
20

x (m)
Figure 11. Heat losses and efciency of collector as function of
the collector length for different absorber diameter, I = 500 W/
m2, mass ow rate = 0.05 kg/s, D = 1.0 m. r in m.

5. CONCLUSIONS
The paper analyzes temperature variation along trough type
solar collector and associated heat losses. As the temperature
difference between the working uid and ambient increases,
the heat losses increase. Therefore, for high temperature
application, it is important to estimate the rate of heat losses.
It is found that using double glazing cover enhances the
thermal efciency of the collector operating at high temperature. Also, it is found that using single glass cover for
collector of length 10 m or less is more economical than
adding double glazing layer. However, for a long collector
double glazing layers is recommend after certain length of
collector for better thermal performance. It is necessary to
estimate the heat losses from high temperature collector
(large aperture diameter) because there is a possibility that
the temperature inside the absorber tube reaches the saturation limit and adding extra length will not contribute to
collecting efciency of the collector. Also, it is clear that
increasing the diameter of absorbing tube enhances the rate
of heat transfer losses, consequently decreasing the thermal
efciency of the collector.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of
Scientic Research at King Saud University for funding
the work through the research group project No. RGPVPP-091.

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