Power Generation Technology ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (6): 682-689.DOI: 10.12096/j.2096-4528.pgt.21096

• Solar Thermal Power Generation Technology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Comparative Analysis of Heat Transfer Characteristics of Conical Cavity Receivers With Different Heat Transfer Fluids

Ding WANG(), Yuxuan CHEN(), Hu XIAO(), Yanping ZHANG()   

  • Received:2021-07-30 Published:2021-12-31 Online:2021-12-23
  • Contact: Yanping ZHANG
  • Supported by:
    National Key Research & Development Program of China(2018YFE0127500);Major Innovation Projects of Hubei Province(2019AAA017)

Abstract:

To explore the influence of heat transfer fluids on the heat transfer characteristics of solar receivers, the heat transfer characteristics of conical cavity receivers with supercritical CO2 and compressed air as heat transfer fluids were compared and analysed by combining ray tracing and computational fluid dynamics method. Based on numerical simulation, the effects of cone angle, fluid inlet mass flow rate and inlet temperature on heat transfer performance of receivers were discussed. The results show that under the same working conditions, the outlet temperature of compressed air is higher than that of supercritical CO2, but the corresponding receiver thermal efficiency and system photothermal conversion efficiency are lower. For the two heat transfer fluids, the system photothermal conversion efficiencies reach the optimal values with the cone angle of 4.12°. In the range of operating parameters studied, the outlet temperature of heat transfer fluids increase linearly with the increase of inlet temperature. Once the mass flow rate exceeds 0.04 kg/s, increasing the mass flow rate has little effect on improving the photothermal conversion efficiency of the system.

Key words: solar energy, receiver, supercritical CO2, compressed air, heat transfer characteristics

CLC Number: