Experimental assessment of different compact flow channel geometries on pressurised gas solar receivers

Pressurised gas receivers using optimised compact flow channels exhibit promising thermal performance in concentrated solar thermal systems, paving the way to integrate solar energy in high efficiency thermodynamic power cycles and industrial heat processes. This work is focused on the experimental...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: D Souza, David Jonathan, Montes Pita, María José, Romero, Manuel, González Aguilar, José
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Repositorio:e-spacio. Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/30352
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/30352
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:3322 Tecnología energética
Compact channel
Experimental characterisation
Pressurised gas
Solar receive
Concentrated solar thermal
Parametric analysis
Descrição
Resumo:Pressurised gas receivers using optimised compact flow channels exhibit promising thermal performance in concentrated solar thermal systems, paving the way to integrate solar energy in high efficiency thermodynamic power cycles and industrial heat processes. This work is focused on the experimental characterisation of several compact absorber samples, in order to verify previous numerical analysis aimed at maximising thermal efficiency while simultaneously minimising pressure drop. Four variants of plain rectangular channel absorber samples were fabricated varying channel height, breadth and wall thickness. Each absorber sample was experimentally studied by varying mass flow rate, inlet pressure and incident radiation flux. The experimental campaign verified important findings and predictions of a previously developed numerical model including that the maximum thermal efficiency and pressure drop occurs at the smallest channel size besides the positive effect of taller and narrower channels. The maximum thermal efficiency observed was 95.8% with the corresponding pressure drop measured at 6.3% of the inlet pressure. This performance, in terms of thermal efficiency and relative pressure drops, is on par and even surpasses the state-of-the-art receivers of its type. Such high thermal efficiencies (above 90%) and low relative pressure drops (below 3%) were also observed for other operating conditions and absorber geometries as well.