Session: 05-03 Solar Receiver Design 1

Paper Number: 106966

106966 - Design Methodology of a Concentrating Solar Volumetric Receiver 

For developing an open-source solar Brayton power plant, a volumetric receiver design process is developed to respond wide range of capacities in power, outlet temperature, or mass flow rate. In the receiver model, concentrated solar radiation hits the inner surface cavity and heats the gaseous fluid passing through the porous media assembled between the cavity and the insulator. Porous media properties (pore diameter and porosity) and receiver geometry (thicknesses of the materials and length) are coupled in the design process to determine the best possible option. A two-step process starts with the design of experiment study to create a surrogate model. A surrogate model is an approximate model of a functional output that represents a fit to some base model data. Then, gradient-based design optimization is initiated using the created surrogate model. The objective is to maximize thermal efficiency within the predefined constraints. The final plant designer concept will be a multidisciplinary optimization model where a coupled solution is performed between the finite-difference receiver model and the other thermodynamic components. The proposed design process has the advantage of exploring more design options faster using the surrogate model and more accurate results using the base model in the plant-level simulations. The methodology is discussed by comparing the surrogate-based design optimization, design of experiment, and gradient-based optimization options, and the outcomes are compared as in solution time, the number of design iterations, and final results.

Presenting Author: M. Pinar Menguc Ozyegin University

Presenting Author Biography: n/a