Modeling of heat conduction processes in porous absorber of open type of solar tower stations

Abstract

An analysis of existing methods for calculating heat and mass transfer processes in porous absorbers of receivers of tower solar power plants is carried out. It is shown that the resulting thermophysical properties of the material are influenced not only by the porosity but also by the location of the pores in the material volume. The criterion of the dislocation vector is proposed as a mathematical indicator of various porous structures. The shortcomings of the existing dependences of the effective thermal conductivity of a material on the type of porosity are shown. The most reliable dependences for determining the thermophysical parameters of a porous medium are also determined and independent factors are proposed on which the mathematical model of heat and mass transfer in open-type solar receivers should be based. The current state of research on the effective thermal conductivity of the porous structure of solar receivers is described in detail. A new formula for calculating the effective thermal conductivity of a porous structure with regard to the dislocation vector and a method for calculating the processes of heat transfer in open solar receivers based on the proposed formula are proposed. The proposed equation has been tested. It is determined that for simple channel structures it is sufficient to use the existing equations to calculate the thermal conductivity coefficient, while for more complex porous structures, such as the StepRec absorber, it is better to use the proposed equation. Among the strengths of this study is a new calculation formula that allows us to build an analytical model of heat transfer in a porous medium. The use of the analytical model can significantly reduce the complexity of modern calculations of heat transfer processes in a porous absorber and will help improve the quality of optimization models of solar receivers.