Abstract:
This study investigates the thermal performance of cavity-shaped porous solar receivers (C-PSR) designed to reduce peak solid temperature and re-radiation losses by optimizing the matching between the heat transfer fluid mass velocity and concentrated solar flux. In this study, a C-PSR prototype was fabricated and evaluated on an indoor sun simulator platform to validate the heat transfer model. Orthogonal optimization reveals that the single-cavity PSR(SC-PSR) with a divergent cavity minimizes re-radiation losses, the optimal double-cavity PSR(DC-PSR) features the secondary opening radius (R3) equal to the first bottom radius (R2), the secondary bottom radius (R4) is half of the primary cavity’s opening radius (R1) and a total cavity depth (L1+L2) is half of the total length(L). Compared to the solid porous solar receiver, the thermal efficiency of the optimal SC-PSR increases by 21.61 %, while the peak solid temperature decreases by 491.19 K at a mass flow rate of 5 g/s. Furthermore, the thermal efficiency of the optimal DC-PSR increases by 21.48 % and the peak solid temperature decreases by 704.89 K than that of S-PSR. This paper presents an innovative approach to enhance the thermal performance of solar receivers.
Yishuo Liu, Guilong Dai, Yijian Yang, Longkun Mu, Optimization on thermal performance of the cavity-shaped porous solar receivers, Energy, Volume 325, 2025, 136170, ISSN 0360-5442, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2025.136170
