Thermal modeling for thermophotovoltaic systems adopting the radiation network method

The radiation heat transfer model for thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system is constructed by adopting a total-spectrum radiation network. However, no consideration of the wavelength shift in the optical filter will lead to the discrepancy between the evaluated spectral emissive power of the optical filter and the Planck law result. Therefore, a modified spectral radiation network in which the wavelength shift effect is expressed as the form of spectral heat source is developed. The modified spectral radiation network is applied in the thermal analysis of a realistic TPV system in which a quartz envelope takes the place of the optical filter, while the optical filter is combined with the cell array. Several important design parameters are figured out, including spectral radiation power density and spectral efficiency of the system, as well as the equivalent radiative temperature of the quartz envelope.