Open Access

ARTICLE

Numerical Investigation of the Temperature and Flow Fields in a Solar Chimney Power Plant

Roudouane Laouar^1,*, Olaf Wünsch²

1 Laboratory of Environment, Larbi Tebessi University, Tebessa, Algeria
2 Department of Fluid Dynamics, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany

* Corresponding Author: Roudouane Laouar. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Materials and Energy an Updated Image for 2021)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2023, 19(4), 1055-1066. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2022.022677

Received 20 March 2022; Accepted 26 May 2022; Issue published 02 November 2022

Abstract

In this work, a parametric two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of a solar chimney power plant (a prototype located in Manzanares, Spain) is presented to illustrate the effects of the solar radiation mode in the collector on the plant performances. The simulations rely on a mathematical model that includes solar radiation within the collector; energy storage; air flow and heat transfer, and a turbine. It is based on the Navier-Stokes equation for turbulent flow formulated according to the standard k-ε model. Moreover, the Boussinesq approach is used to account for the fluid density variations. Different solar radiation modes in the collector are compared and discussed. The obtained results are also compared with available experimental results. It is shown that the radiation model is essential to avoid overestimation of the energy absorbed by the plant and that results based on a two-dimensional model can resemble closely those produced by three-dimensional models.

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Keywords

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