Numerical Simulation and Experimental Study of the Tube Receiver's Performance of Solar Thermal Power Tower

AbstractA water-vapor tube receiver is a significant component in the solar thermal power tower plant. However, the tube flow performance is much different from others. Because semi-circumference of the tube is heated with an uneven heat flux, which is into a Gaussian distribution in this paper, and the other semi-circumference is insulated. A 5kW- Xe-arc lamp was used to simulate a solar light source. In this study, the effect of different entrance velocity on the flow performance and thermal efficiency of the tube receiver are investigated with numerical and experimental methods. The results of experiment and simulation agree well. The results show that the temperature distribution of water and tube wall are very uneven both in the axial and radial directions. The thermal efficiency of the tube receiver increases with the increase of entrance velocity