A comparison between transient CFD and FEM simulations of solar central receiver tubes using molten salt and liquid metals

Fritsch, Andreas; Uhlig, Ralf; Marocco, Luca; Frantz, Cathy; Flesch, Robert; Hoffschmidt, Bernhard

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2017.06.022

Cited by 38 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Here, T present and T Fritsch are the temperatures obtained in the present work and in the work of Fritsch et al [28], respectively.…”

Section: Validation Of the Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…To validate the accuracy of the simulation, the turbulent flow in a smooth tube based on the model developed by Fritsch et al [28] was considered, under uniform heat flux boundary conditions on the front side of the tube. The temperature distribution at the front side of the tube obtained in this simulation and that determined by Fritsch and coworkers [28] are shown in Figure 7. The results reveal a good agreement between these two studies.…”

Section: Validation Of the Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…i F is the body force, where the over-line denotes the average value. The term According to the results of previous studies by A. Fritsch and coworkers [28], the kω turbulence model is a good choice for the simulation of the heat and mass transfers in the tube flow, and for this reason, it was adopted in these simulations. The transport equations for the turbulent kinetic energy (k) and its specific dissipation rate (ω) are expressed as [26] ( )…”

Section: Governing Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thermal Analysis of a Solar External Receiver Tube with a Novel Component of Guide Vanes

Koch

Sarunac

et al. 2021

Energies

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The heat transfer performance of a solar external receiver tube with guide vanes was numerically studied under non-uniform heat flux conditions. Models of the smooth tube and the tube with guide vanes were built. The distributions of the temperature, velocity, turbulence intensity, and Nu predicted by these two models were compared to investigate the heat transfer enhancement and the mixing effect of the guide vanes. The effect of the Re and the α on the heat transfer enhancement was also studied. The results show that the guide vanes form spiraling flows, reduce the maximum tube and molten salt temperatures, and improve the heat transfer. In addition, a more uniform temperature distribution is achieved compared to the smooth tube, allowing the molten salt to work safely under higher heat flux conditions in the receiver tube with guide vanes. It was observed that a larger Re enhances the heat transfer on the tube wall and achieves a longer effective distance of enhanced heat transfer in the downstream region, while the spiraling flow, the heat transfer enhancement, and the mixing are stronger for a larger α.

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“…Here, T present and T Fritsch are the temperatures obtained in the present work and in the work of Fritsch et al [28], respectively.…”

Section: Validation Of the Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Validation Of the Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Governing Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thermal Analysis of a Solar External Receiver Tube with a Novel Component of Guide Vanes

Koch

Sarunac

et al. 2021

Energies

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“…Therefore, numerical simulation is an effective research method [25,26]. In this work, we present a numerical simulation on the heat transfer of liquid sodium under nonuniform heat flux.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat-Transfer Characteristics of Liquid Sodium in a Solar Receiver Tube with a Nonuniform Heat Flux

Liu

Lei

2019

Energies

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This paper presents a numerical simulation on the heat transfer of liquid sodium in a solar receiver tube, as the liquid sodium is a promising heat-transfer candidate for the next generation solar-power-tower (SPT) system. A comparison between three mediums—solar salt, Hitec and liquid sodium—is presented under uniform and nonuniform heat-flux configurations. We studied the effects of mass flow rate (Qm), inlet temperature (Tin), and maximum heat flux (qomax), on the average heat-transfer coefficient (h) and the friction coefficient (f) of the three mediums. The results show that the h of liquid sodium is about 2.5 to 5 times than other two molten salts when Tin is varying from 550 to 800 K, Qm is 1.0 kg/s, and qomax is 0.1 MW/m2. For maximum heat fluxes from 0.1 to 0.3 MW/m2, the h of liquid sodium is always an order of magnitude larger than that of Hitec and Solar-Salt (S-S), while maintaining a small friction coefficient.

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“…[2,3]. More recently, numerical simulations also tackle non-homogeneous thermal boundary conditions [4][5][6][7][8]. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of openly available high-fidelity datasets for heat transfer in turbulent pipe flows, especially concerning low Prandtl number fluids.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-homogeneous thermal boundary conditions in low Prandtl number pipe flows

Straub¹,

Forooghi²,

Marocco³

et al. 2018

Proceeding of THMT-18. Turbulence Heat and Mass Transfer 9 Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium on Turbulence Heat

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The effect of non-homogeneous thermal boundary conditions on temperature statistics in low Prandtl number turbulent pipe flows is studied numerically via direct numerical simulations. Two wall heat flux distributions, varying in azimuthal direction and motivated by concentrated solar power systems, are prescribed and their influence on the thermal field is presented. As a reference, also homogeneous thermal boundary conditions are simulated and compared the the non-homogeneous ones. The influence of the azimuthal variation of prescribed wall heat flux is assessed in terms of instantaneous velocity and temperature fields, local and global Nusselt numbers, averaged temperature distributions and the turbulent thermal diffusivity. The global Nusselt number appears to be unaffected by the thermal boundary conditions, whereas the local Nusselt number deviates appreciably.

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A comparison between transient CFD and FEM simulations of solar central receiver tubes using molten salt and liquid metals

Cited by 38 publications

References 11 publications

Thermal Analysis of a Solar External Receiver Tube with a Novel Component of Guide Vanes

Thermal Analysis of a Solar External Receiver Tube with a Novel Component of Guide Vanes

Heat-Transfer Characteristics of Liquid Sodium in a Solar Receiver Tube with a Nonuniform Heat Flux

Non-homogeneous thermal boundary conditions in low Prandtl number pipe flows

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