The effect of porous media thickness and the air velocity inlet on the temperature distribution inside a solar tower volumetric receiver

Abstract

In order to investigate the steady heat transfer characteristics of a porous media solar tower receiver, this paper applies the steady heat and mass transfer models of the porous media to solar receivers, chooses the preferable volume convection heat transfer coefficient model, solves these equations by using the numerical method of finite volume, and analyzes the typical influences of the thickness and the air velocity inlet, on the temperature distribution. The paper can provide a reference for this type of receiver design and reconstruction. Finite volume method was used to solve the governing equations. Upwind scheme was applied to governing equations, and solution was obtained using the Gausse-Seidel iterative method. The computational domain was discretized by (50 x1) grids. The convergence criterion was to be 10-3 relative error between consecutive iterations for the grid points in the calculation domain. The inlet air temperature was set to 293 K and a uniform solar radiation flux, qw, was set to 1 MW/m2. Constant properties of the fluid and porous media were assumed for air and SiC matrix