This book presents a comprehensive exploration of solar energy sources, with a particular emphasis on comparing them to fossil fuels regarding their impact on global warming. It covers various aspects of solar energy power generation in practice, including details about the sun, such as the solar constant, different types of solar radiation, solar time, and the direction of beam radiation. Additionally, the book delves into the thermal performance of different types of solar concentrating collectors, focusing specifically on the fundamental principles of parabolic solar trough collectors. Drawing upon historical contexts, it examines the detailed evolution of these collectors in terms of thermal and optical performance, and it addresses techniques developed to tackle challenges such as non-uniform heat flux distribution on the receiver tube's outermost surface.

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Dr. Oveepsa Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Girijananda Chowdhury University (GCU), Assam, India, where she has been serving since 2011. She earned her B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology in 2009, followed by an M.Tech. from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Silchar in 2011, and later obtained her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Silchar in 2021 with her research focused on renewable energy and solar thermal systems. Her academic and research interests lie in the areas of heat transfer, nanofluids, solar thermal energy, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and energy storage, with a particular emphasis on enhancing the thermal performance of parabolic trough collectors (PTCs). Dr. Chakraborty has published more than 18 international journal papers, book chapters, and conference articles, many of which are highly cited. Her works introduce diverse innovations, including hybrid and ternary nanofluids, advanced receiver geometries, helical and spiral absorber tubes, and spinning inserts, offering new approaches for improving the efficiency of solar thermal systems. Through her teaching and research, she continues to contribute to the advancement of sustainable and efficient renewable energy technologies for practical applications.

Dr. Biplab Das is working as an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Silchar, India. Dr. Das completed his Ph.D. from NERIST, Itanagar, India, in 2014. Later, he pursued his Post-Doctoral research at the University of Idaho, USA, under the prestigious Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy (BASE) fellowship from the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum and DST, Govt. of India. He was also awarded the 'DBT Associateship' by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, and was a visiting researcher at Ulster University, UK. He has 17+ years of experience in teaching and research and has published 180+ refereed international journal and conference papers. He has guided 10 Ph.D. Dr. Das is reviewer of 30+ reputed journals of Elsevier, ASME, Springer, etc. Dr. Das has been involved in 12 sponsored projects funded by Govt. agencies like DST, SERB, CPRI, MoEF&CC, etc., worth 3.0 million INR, and completed 10 of them. Dr. Das has guided 15 M.Tech. Dissertations. His area of research interest includes heat transfer, solar thermal system, alternative fuel, energy storage, etc.