Performance of Solid Particle Receivers With or Without the Protection of an Aerowindow

Authors

Taide Tan, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Yi-tung Chen, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Huajun Chen, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2009

Publication Title

2008 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Energy Sustainability

Publisher

American Society of Mechanical Engineers

First page number:

95

Last page number:

104

Abstract

A solid particle solar receiver (SPSR) is a direct absorption central receiver that uses solid particles enclosed in a cavity to absorb concentrated solar radiation. However, the existing open aperture lowers the overall efficiency by convection heat transfer. Aerowindows have the potential of increasing the efficiency of an SPSR by reducing convective losses from an open receiver aperture and eliminate reflection, convection and reradiation losses from a comparable glass window. Aerodynamic windows consist of a transparent gas stream, which is injected from an air jet, across the receiver aperture to isolate its interior from the surrounding atmosphere. Even though, the wind conditions may still have important effect on the performance of SPSRs. In the present paper, the wind effect on the performance of an SPSR is investigated numerically. The mass, momentum and energy exchange between the solid particle and air flow are simulated by the two-way coupling Euler-Lagrange method in the realizable k-ε turbulence 3D model. The independence of the calculating domain is studied in order to select a proper domain for the numerical simulation. Solar ray tracing method is employed in calculating the solar radiation energy. The numerical investigation of the performance of the SPSR is focusing on optimizing the prototype design and finding out the best working condition for the SPSR. In order to investigate the influences of the wind speed and wind blowing direction on the performance of the receiver, different wind conditions of and different air jet injection conditions are simulated numerically. The cavity thermal efficiencies are calculated and the optimal injection conditions are analyzed for different wind conditions.

Keywords

Aerodynamics; Particles; Particulate matter; Solar energy; Solar power plants

Disciplines

Energy Systems | Materials Science and Engineering | Mechanical Engineering | Oil, Gas, and Energy | Sustainability

Language

English

Comments

From; ASME 2008 2nd International Conference on Energy Sustainability, Jacksonville, Florida, USA, August 10–14, 2008

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.

Repository Citation

Tan, T., Chen, Y., Chen, H. (2009). Performance of Solid Particle Receivers With or Without the Protection of an Aerowindow. 2008 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Energy Sustainability 95-104. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.