Design Methods, Tools, and Data for Ceramic Solar Receivers

Technical Report · Sun Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2472938· OSTI ID:2472938

Chaugule, Pawan ^[1]; Barua, Bipul ^[1]; Singh, Dileep ^[1]; Messner, Mark C. ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

This report presents the development of tools and methods for evaluating the reliability and performance of ceramic materials in high temperature solar receivers. As Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies aim for higher operating temperatures to enhance efficiency and meet industrial process heat requirements, current high temperature metallic materials face challenges in maintaining structural integrity. This report explores advanced ceramics as a promising alternative, given their superior high temperature strength and lower thermal expansion, compared to metals. To address the need for effective ceramic receiver design tools, this report integrates statistical failure models of ceramics into the existing srlife tool: an open-source software package designed to estimate the life of high temperature CSP components. These failure models account for the inherent variability and flaw distribution in ceramics, as well as the impact of subcritical crack growth under high temperature cyclic loads. The report also presents experimental data collected for a commercially available ceramic material, SiC, and details the process of estimating reliability model parameters from these data. A comparative design analysis is then performed between ceramic (SiC) and metallic (current nickel-based superalloys A740H and A282) receiver. This comparison demonstrates that SiC receivers can achieve service life exceeding 30 years under high incident heat flux conditions, compared to just a few years for metallic receivers.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 2472938
• Report Number(s): ANL--24/51; 191648
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE