Investigating the impact of the diameter of the solar collector on the output power of the solar chimney system

Abstract

The aim of this of paper is to study the effects of the collector radius of a solar chimney power plant (SCPP) on the power output of a solar chimney system. The data was collected from a small prototype solar chimney which was conducted at the College of Engineering, Sabratha. Geometric measurements were taken from the first model used in Manzanares, Spain. In this research, the height of the chimney was fixed at 194.6 m, the geometric dimensions of the solar chimney station were fixed and, the value of the collector radius was varied for energy production .The power output value was calculated for each radius. MATLAB software was used as numerical solution tool to assess the thermal behavior and performance of a solar chimney power plant . The maximum value obtained for the output power was 192.19 kilowatts with a diameter of 544 meters whereas the lowest value was 55 kilowatts with a diameter of 244 meters. Both values were obtained at the same time at 3 p.m. which shows the effect of the collector radius on the amount power produced. Also, it was concluded that the theoretical power output of SCPP is directly proportional to the radius of the collector.