Coupled modeling of a directly heated tubular solar receiver for supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle: Optical and thermal-fluid evaluation

Journal Article · Mon May 30 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Applied Thermal Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.05.178· OSTI ID:1257787

Ortega, Jesus ^[1]; Khivsara, Sagar ^[2]; Christian, Joshua ^[1]; Ho, Clifford ^[1]; Yellowhair, Julius ^[1]; Dutta, Pradip ^[2]

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1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
2. Indian Inst. of Science, Bangalore, KA (India)

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.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000; DE AC36-08G028308; IUSSTF/JCERDC-SERIIUS/2012
• OSTI ID: 1257787
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1257793; OSTI ID: 1397700
• Report Number(s): SAND2016-2442J; SAND2016-5427J; 625538
• Journal Information: Applied Thermal Engineering, Journal Name: Applied Thermal Engineering; ISSN 1359-4311
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES