Numerical investigation on the flow and thermal behaviors of the volumetric solar receivers with different morphologies

Morphologies of the porous materials influence the processes of solar radiation transport, flow, and thermal behaviors within volumetric solar receivers. A comprehensive comparative study is conducted by applying pore scale numerical simulations on volumetric solar receivers featuring various morphologies, including Kelvin, Weaire-Phelan, and foam configurations. The idealized unit cell and X-ray computed tomography scan approaches are employed to reconstruct pore scale porous models.Monte Carlo ray tracing and pore scale numerical simulations are implemented to elucidate the radiative, flow, and thermal behaviors of distinct receivers exposed to varying thermal boundary conditions and real irradiation situations. The findings demonstrate that the foam structure exhibits greater solar radiation absorptivity, while Kelvin and Weaire-Phelan structures enhance the penetration depth under non-perpendicular solar irradiation. In comparison with Kelvin and Weaire-Phelan configurations, the foam structure presents efficient convective heat transfer, with the Weaire-Phelan structure showing pronounced thermal non-equilibrium phenomena. The variance in convective heat transfer coefficient between Kelvin and Weaire-Phelan configurations is approximately 8.4%. The foam structure exhibits higher thermal efficiency and flow resistance under nonperpendicular irradiation compared to Kelvin and Weaire-Phelan structures, attributed to its smaller pore size and intricate flow channels. An increase of 1.3% in thermal efficiency is observed with a substantial rise in pressure drop of 32.2%.

Comparison of Direct Pore-Scale and Volume-Averaging Methods for the Performance Evaluation of Porous Volumetric Solar Receiver

Direct pore-scale and volume-averaging numerical simulations are two methods for investigating the performance of porous volumetric solar receivers.To clarify the difference in the prediction of heat transfer processes,a direct comparison between these two methods was conducted at both steady state and transient state.The numerical models were established based on X-ray computed tomography scans and a local thermal non-equilibrium model,respectively.The empirical parameters,which are indispensable to the volume-averaging simulation,were determined by Monte Carlo ray tracing and direct pore-scale numerical simulations.The predicted outlet air temperature of the receiver by the volume-averaging simulation method corresponded satisfactorily to that in the direct pore-scale simulation.The largest discrepancies were observed when the receiver's working temperature was elevated,with differences of 5.5%and 3.68%for the steady state and transient state simulations,respectively.However,the volume-averaging method is incapable of capturing the local temperature information of the air and porous skeleton.It underestimates the inlet temperature of the receiver,leading to an overestimation of the receiver's thermal efficiency,with the largest difference being 6.51%.The comparison results show that the volume-averaging model is a good approximation to the pore-scale model when the empirical parameters are carefully selected.

Advances in porous volumetric solar receivers and enhancement of volumetric absorption

Porous volumetric solar receivers are one type of solar receivers that can volumetrically absorb solar radiation and achieve efficient solar-to-thermal energy conversion.Porous volumetric solar receivers have been developed since 1980s.In this review,we focus on the development progress of the atmospheric and pressurized porous volumetric solar receivers,in which the structural designs,the material selections,the experimental research methods,the comparison of thermal performance,and the transient response characteristic of the receivers were reviewed.On the other hand,the theoretical research methods including the direct pore-scale and volume averaging simulations were introduced.The pore-scale reconstruction method and the procedure to investigate the fluid flow and heat transfer processes at the pore-scale were presented.For the volume averaging method,detailed descriptions for the selection of empirical parameters in the governing equations to be solved were summarized.Typical research results based on these methods were presented and research limitations were also pointed out.Furthermore,the methods for the enhancement of volumetric absorption and the improvement of thermal efficiency of the receivers have been comprehensively reviewed.Two methods including geometrical parameters optimization and spectrally selective absorption were presented in detail.This review will provide a better understanding of the development and research methods for porous volumetric solar receivers,and inspire future studies for the performance improvement of the receivers.

Experimental and numerical analysis of the hydraulic and thermal performances of the gradually-varied porous volumetric solar receiver

A gradually-varied porous structure is designed to increase the thermal performance of the porous volumetric solar receiver.Based on the replica method and multilayer recoating technique, the silicon carbide porous ceramic with linear-changed geometrical parameters is fabricated. The performances of the uniform and gradually-varied porous volumetric solar receivers are studied by both experiment and numerical simulation. An optimization method combining genetic algorithm and computational fluid dynamics analysis is applied to determine the optimum porosity distribution. The results present that porous volumetric solar receiver with linear-changed geometrical parameters exhibits better thermal performance than the uniform porous volumetric solar receivers, especially when the thickness of the receiver is small. Larger porosity in the front is beneficial for increasing the solar radiation penetration depth, which limits the reflectance and thermal radiative losses. Smaller porosity in the rear traps more solar radiation and increases the convective heat transfer. When the receiver’s thickness is larger, the performance of the gradually-varied volumetric solar receiver is nearly identical to that of the uniform receiver with largest porosity. The double-layer configuration is found to be the optimized structure of the gradually-varied porous volumetric solar receiver. The thermal efficiency could be further improved using genetic algorithm with an 11 K increase of the outlet temperature.

Numerical study on the effective thermal conductivity and thermal tortuosity of porous media with different morphologies

Effective thermal conductivity and thermal tortuosity are crucial parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of heat conduction within porous media.The direct pore-scale numerical simulation method is applied to investigate the heat conduction processes inside porous structures with different morphologies.The thermal conduction performances of idealized porous structures are directly compared with real foams across a wide range of porosity.Real foam structures are reconstructed using X-ray computed tomography and image processing techniques,while Kelvin and Weaire-Phelan structures are generated through periodic unit cell reconstruction.The detailed temperature fields inside the porous structures are determined by solving the heat conduction equation at the pore scale.The results present that the equivalent thermal conductivity of Kelvin and Weaire-Phelan structures is similar to and greater than that of the real foam structure with the same strut porosity.The thermal tortuosity of real foam structure is relatively larger and the heat conduction path becomes straighter by adopting the anisotropic design.The thermal tortuosity of the fluid channels for Kelvin,Weaire-Phelan,and real foam structures is close to one.The thermal conductivity of porous structures with heat transfer fluid increases as the thermal conductivity ratio of fluid to solid becomes larger.A small porosity of porous media leads to a larger equivalent thermal conductivity due to the dominant contribution of porous skeleton in the heat conduction process.Correlations derived from parallel and series models,as well as the Maxwell-Eucken models,provide decent predictions of effective thermal conductivity,with an average error of less than 8%in the entire range of thermal conductivity ratio.