The System Should Cover the Following Training Objectives:
Investigation of focusing of solar radiation with a parabolic trough mirror
Study of optical concentration factor
Familiarization with direct normal irradiance (DNI)
Familiarization with sensor-based sun tracking
Learning about astronomical sun tracking
Conversion of radiant energy into heat
Study of losses in thermal solar collectors
Illustraion of efficiency curves
Minimum Technical Specifications Required (like or better than):
PLC unit with touch screen for control and data acquisition
Thermal solar collector
─Parabolic mirror with trough length: 1.3m, aperture width: 1m, mirror surface: 1.4m2 and focal length: 0.3m
─Absorber with selectively coated absorber tubes with U-tube line for heat transfer fluid and double walled glass shell to reduce heat loss
─Solar circuit with adjustable solar pump

2-axis sun tracking with gear motors
Hot water circuit
─10x plate heat exchanger: 2.9kW each
─Buffer tank: 65L
The collector should be able to align vertically via a pivoted suspension
Built-in direct normal irradiance sensor
Built-in magnetometer and accelerometer for astronomical alignment
4x Temperature sensor: up to 150°C each
Flow rate sensor: 25 to 315L/h
Pressure sensor: up to 5.5bar
Built-in LAN/WLAN interface to enable connection of many end devices for operation, control and screen mirroring of the experiments
The system is placed on a rigid trolley with four castor wheels
Artificial Light Source Unit, 8x 1000W with its own trolley
PC Core i7, DVD+/-RW, 8GB RAM, 1TB Hard Disk Drive, Optical Mouse, Multimedia Keyboard, Monitor (21") LED