Effects of Volumetric Property Models on the Efficiency of a Porous Volumetric Solar Receiver

Abstract

A porous volumetric receiver is the key component in concentrated solar power systems. In this paper, we investigate the effects of volumetric parameter models on the heat collection efficiency of the volumetric receiver by numerical simulations with the combination of local thermal non-equilibrium and discrete ordinate methods. Seven volumetric convective heat transfer coefficient models and three extinction coefficient models were investigated. The efficiencies calculated using these models were compared among each other. The results show that volumetric convective heat transfer coefficient models have significant effects with a maximum difference of 27.7% in receiver efficiency for these models. Extinction coefficient models have less effects on receiver efficiency with a maximum difference of 7.3%.