Felt-metal-wick heat-pipe solar receiver
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Porous Metal Products, Jacksboro, TX (United States)
- Bekaert Corp., Marietta, GA (United States)
Reflux heat-pipe receivers have been identified as a desirable interface to couple a Stirling-cycle engine with a parabolic dish solar concentrator. The reflux receiver provides power nearly isothermally to the engine heater heads while decoupling the heater head design from the solar absorber surface design. The independent design of the receiver and engine heater head leads to higher system efficiency. Heat pipe reflux receivers have been demonstrated at approximately 65 kW{sub t} power throughput. Several 25 to 30-kW{sub e} Stirling-cycle engines are under development, and will soon be incorporated in commercial dish-Stirling systems. These engines will require reflux receivers with power throughput limits reaching 90-kW{sub t}. The extension of heat pipe technology from 60 kW{sub t} to 100 kW{sub t} is not trivial. Current heat pipe wick technology is pushed to its limits. It is necessary to develop and test advanced wick structure technologies to perform this task. Sandia has developed and begun testing a Bekaert Corporation felt metal wick structure fabricated by Porous Metal Products Inc. This wick is about 95% porous, and has liquid permeability a factor of 2 to 8 times higher than conventional technologies for a given maximum pore radius. The wick has been successfully demonstrated in a bench-scale heat pipe, and a full-scale on-sun receiver has been fabricated. This report details the wick design, characterization and installation into a heat pipe receiver, and the results of the bench-scale tests are presented. The wick performance is modeled, and the model results are compared to test results.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 10106661
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-94-2682C; CONF-950336-13; ON: DE95004535; BR: GB0103012
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Society of Mechanical Engineers/Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers/Japan Solar Energy Society international solar energy conference,Lahaina, HI (United States),19-24 Mar 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1994]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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