Modeling of the Dish Receiver With the Effect of Inhomogeneous Radiation Flux Distribution

• Published in: Heat transfer engineering 2014-05, Vol.35 (6-8), p.780-790
• Main Authors: Cui, Fu-Qing, He, Ya-Ling, Cheng, Ze-Dong, Li, Yin-Shi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Bulging; Energy; Exact sciences and technology; Heat transfer; Monte Carlo simulation; Natural energy; Radiation; Solar collectors; Solar energy; Solar thermal conversion; Temperature distribution
• ISSN: 0145-7632; 1521-0537
• DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2013.838098

In this work, a new modeling coupling the inhomogeneous radiation flux distribution for the dish receiver is proposed and developed. The radiation transmission and absorbing process of the dish concentrating system is achieved by using the Monte Carlo ray tracing method (MCRT method), which reveals the high-order nonuniformity of the irradiance flux distribution on the inner wall of the dish receiver. The implementation of the three-dimensional numerical simulation coupling the heat loss of the dish receiver is by combining the microscopic MCRT method and the macroscopic SIMPLE method. In addition, a coupled photon statistic method is established to ensure the accuracy of heat flux distribution computation. The modeling result reveals that the temperature distributions of the inner receiver surface are significantly influenced by the inhomogeneous radiation flux. The temperature of the high local heat flux density area that lies in the middle part of the inner surface reaches 1374.8 K, which is even higher than the top area. In addition, the combined heat losses from natural convection and surface radiation are analyzed and compared respectively. It is found that the surface radiation heat loss is the predominant heat loss pattern of the combined heat transfer, and the natural convection loss is sensitive to solar intensity and the orientation of dish cavity receiver but changes little with the emissivity of the inner surface.