Coupled modeling of a directly heated tubular solar receiver for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle: Optical and thermal-fluid evaluation
Abstract
In single phase performance and appealing thermo-physical properties supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO 2) make a good heat transfer fluid candidate for concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. The development of a solar receiver capable of delivering s-CO 2 at outlet temperatures ~973 K is required in order to merge CSP and s-CO 2 Brayton cycle technologies. A coupled optical and thermal-fluid modeling effort for a tubular receiver is undertaken to evaluate the direct tubular s-CO 2 receiver’s thermal performance when exposed to a concentrated solar power input of ~0.3–0.5 MW. Ray tracing, using SolTrace, is performed to determine the heat flux profiles on the receiver and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) determines the thermal performance of the receiver under the specified heating conditions. Moreover, an in-house MATLAB code is developed to couple SolTrace and ANSYS Fluent. CFD modeling is performed using ANSYS Fluent to predict the thermal performance of the receiver by evaluating radiation and convection heat loss mechanisms. Understanding the effects of variation in heliostat aiming strategy and flow configurations on the thermal performance of the receiver was achieved through parametric analyses. Finally, a receiver thermal efficiency ~85% was predicted and the surface temperatures were observed to be within the allowablemore »
- Authors:
-
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Indian Inst. of Science, Bangalore, KA (India)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1257787
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1257793; OSTI ID: 1397700
- Report Number(s):
- SAND2016-2442J; SAND2016-5427J
Journal ID: ISSN 1359-4311; 625538
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; DE AC36-08G028308; IUSSTF/JCERDC-SERIIUS/2012
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Applied Thermal Engineering
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Applied Thermal Engineering; Journal ID: ISSN 1359-4311
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Citation Formats
Ortega, Jesus, Khivsara, Sagar, Christian, Joshua, Ho, Clifford, Yellowhair, Julius, and Dutta, Pradip. Coupled modeling of a directly heated tubular solar receiver for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle: Optical and thermal-fluid evaluation. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.05.178.
Ortega, Jesus, Khivsara, Sagar, Christian, Joshua, Ho, Clifford, Yellowhair, Julius, & Dutta, Pradip. Coupled modeling of a directly heated tubular solar receiver for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle: Optical and thermal-fluid evaluation. United States. doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.05.178.
Ortega, Jesus, Khivsara, Sagar, Christian, Joshua, Ho, Clifford, Yellowhair, Julius, and Dutta, Pradip. Mon .
"Coupled modeling of a directly heated tubular solar receiver for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle: Optical and thermal-fluid evaluation". United States. doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.05.178. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1257787.
@article{osti_1257787,
title = {Coupled modeling of a directly heated tubular solar receiver for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle: Optical and thermal-fluid evaluation},
author = {Ortega, Jesus and Khivsara, Sagar and Christian, Joshua and Ho, Clifford and Yellowhair, Julius and Dutta, Pradip},
abstractNote = {In single phase performance and appealing thermo-physical properties supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO2) make a good heat transfer fluid candidate for concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. The development of a solar receiver capable of delivering s-CO2 at outlet temperatures ~973 K is required in order to merge CSP and s-CO2 Brayton cycle technologies. A coupled optical and thermal-fluid modeling effort for a tubular receiver is undertaken to evaluate the direct tubular s-CO2 receiver’s thermal performance when exposed to a concentrated solar power input of ~0.3–0.5 MW. Ray tracing, using SolTrace, is performed to determine the heat flux profiles on the receiver and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) determines the thermal performance of the receiver under the specified heating conditions. Moreover, an in-house MATLAB code is developed to couple SolTrace and ANSYS Fluent. CFD modeling is performed using ANSYS Fluent to predict the thermal performance of the receiver by evaluating radiation and convection heat loss mechanisms. Understanding the effects of variation in heliostat aiming strategy and flow configurations on the thermal performance of the receiver was achieved through parametric analyses. Finally, a receiver thermal efficiency ~85% was predicted and the surface temperatures were observed to be within the allowable limit for the materials under consideration.},
doi = {10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.05.178},
journal = {Applied Thermal Engineering},
issn = {1359-4311},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {2016},
month = {5}
}
Web of Science