Building a Homemade Solar Parabolic Trough and Studying the Effect of Tracking on Thermal Performance.

The present work involves constructing a parabolic solar concentrator using local materials for the city of Mosul, Iraq.Its implementation aims for minimal cost and weight.This system is adaptable for further development to study various factors that contribute to enhancing the thermal performance of the solar concentrator, such as (receiver diameter, receiver length, concentrator area, concentrator tilt angle, tracking, mass flow rate, fluid type, reflective surface material, etc.).In this study, the effect of tracking on the practical thermal efficiency of the solar concentrator was investigated in a single-axis configuration (North-South).The tests were conducted in two cases: the first case with tracking system, and the second case without tracking system.The practical results indicated a higher efficiency of the system with tracking (17%) compared to the fixed system's peak efficiency.The useful thermal energy was increased by approximately 550 Watts compared to the fixed system.