HEAT TRANSFER PERFORMANCE OF PARTICLE SOLAR RECEIVER: NUMERICAL STUDY

Abstract

In this study, the effects of helical spring vortex generators on the thermal performance and pressure drop of particle solar receivers are investigated. Four different types of materials are tangentially introduced into the solar particle receiver with air (e.g., zinc oxide, copper, magnesium oxide, and silicon carbide). The rate of mass flow has ranged from 0.005 to 0.01 kg/s. The outlet temperature, velocity, and pressure distribution are studied as well as the cavity efficiency. The model sizes chosen and boundary conditions were confirmed by the previous analysis. The findings revealed that the turbulence in the cavity can be increased by the spring wire to raise the outlet temperature to 920 K. As the mass flow rates increase, the cavity efficiency increases. The new inset in the receiver, where it can be ignored, increases the pressure drop smoothly. The performance of the cavity improved by decreasing the particle diameter where the particle with a diameter of 600 μm reached the highest efficiency of the cavity with a scale from 36% to 94%. The overall cavity efficiency of the silicon carbide particles ranges from 46% to 97% where the peak temperature at the outlet of the receiver is 1060 K.