Ambient crosswind effect on the first integrated pilot of a floating solar chimney power plant: experimental and numerical approach

Abstract

Floating Solar Chimney Power Plant (FSC) proposed by Papageorgiou is regarded as a novel type of Solar Aero-Electric Power Plants with fundamental characteristics of low cost and unaffected seismic chimney. The main disadvantage of the proposed system is the tilting of the floating chimney in windy conditions compared with a conventional reinforced concrete one. In the present research, the ambient crosswind (ACW) effect is studied on an FSC with experimental and numerical approaches. An experimental floating chimney integrated with an appropriate solar collector was designed, built, and tested under real-world conditions, and the experimental results were used for validations of the numerical analysis. Three-dimensional numerical analysis was performed to study the performance of the tilted floating solar chimney exposed to the ACW and then compared with a conventional type. Numerical results show that a tilting FSC with lower apparent height can operate more efficiently than a vertical concrete chimney in windy conditions due to eliminating adverse effects of tip vortices on updraft flow in the system. The results also show that an optimum tilting angle (OTA) exists for the specified plant and critical or prevailing wind speed, making ACW adverse effects minimum. Floating solar chimney design can be enhanced significantly based on achieving optimum tilting angle in windy conditions.