Measurements of the Forced Convective Heat Loss from Open Cylindrical Cavities of Multi-MW Scale Solar Central Receiver Systems

Kurzfassung

We investigated the forced convective heat loss from a model of a multi-MW cavity receiver of a concentrated solar power (CSP) tower system in a high-pressure wind tunnel. Measurements of 5 geometrical configurations of this model are reported in this contribution. The experiment covered a Reynolds number range of between 2 ⋅ 106 and 8 ⋅ 106, based on the external flow field. The results show that the maximum forced convective heat loss for all configurations occurs when the wind blows from frontal directions of between 60° and 80° relative to the tower symmetry plane. We found that the peak location does not vary for different inclinations, but does vary for different apertures. Also, the results show that the direction of the wind causes the forced convective heat loss to vary with a factor of up to 6.3. Last but not least, we augmented the interpretation of our heat loss measurements with images produced with a Background-oriented Schlieren Imaging (BOS) setup.