Mass flow rate enhancement inside a solar chimney power plant

Abstract

The Solar chimney power plant is a system that converts solar energy to mechanical energy and then to electrical energy. The present work aims to conduct numerical investigation on the influence of the radius ratio Rt* = Rtout/Rtinlet and the height of the tower-chimney, on the flow behavior inside the SCPP of Manzanares. A 2D axi-symetric turbulent model is adopted. The momentum and energy equations are solved using the finite volume method and the simple algorithm. Results show that velocity and mass flow rate inside the SCPP are affected by the radius ratio Rt*, the height of tower-chimney Ht* and intensity radiation Q. We obtain an enhancement of mass flow rate by about 58.23% for the divergence of the tower-chimney.