Numerical analyses of the concentrated solar receiver pipes with superheated steam

Abstract

In this paper, numerical analyses on a concentrated solar receiver pipes have been performed. The fluid is considered to be superheated steam phase. The pressure drops and temperature distribution in the absorber tubes of the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) have been explored in detail. In the numerical studies, the experimental data received from the solar test facility located at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria, Spain has been used for the real world application in order to shed a light on the superheated phase of the plant. The RNG k-ε turbulence model is considered for the Computational Fluid Dynamics analyses. In the explorations, especially the fluid behavior at different mass flows has been taken into account. The process has been evaluated for different temperate T and pressure P cases such as Case 1: p = 3.21 MPa, T = 240.4°C and Case 2: p = 10 MPa, T = 500°C. According to the results, the numerical results have been in good agreement within the error rate of 0.79% for the experimental temperature measurements. Therefore, the proposed numerical technique can be generalized for different steam parameters of PTSC in order to estimate the steam characterization for the experimental facility.