Flow Dynamical Optimization for Solar Heat Receiver

Solar heat receiver in solar thermal power is currently one of the important research hotspots of renewable energy. In present paper, the basic physical models of heat transfer and forced convection are proposed to investigate solar heat receiver. The net energy absorption of solar heat receiver is defined as the energy absorption minus the driving power for forced convection, and it is optimized according to different flow velocities. For solar heat receiver under uniform incident energy flux, the wall temperature almost linearity increases with the incident energy flux, while the heat absorption efficiency has maximum at optimal flux. At low flow velocity, the driving power for forced convection slowly increases with flow velocity, while the heat absorption efficiency of solar heat receiver increases quickly. At high flow velocity, the driving power sharply increases with flow velocity, while the heat absorption efficiency decreases slowly. As a result, the net energy absorption of solar heat receiver will reach maximum at optimal flow velocity.