A comparison between a conventional and a convergent collector of a solar chimney power plant

Abstract

A numerical model is developed to assess the performance of a solar chimney power plant while varying the collector roof angle. A comparison between a convergent collector roof and a conventional setup of a solar chimney power plant is presented. A two-dimensional steady model has been developed using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code "Ansys Fluent 17.0". For each collector roof configuration, the distribution of the magnitude velocity, the temperature, the pressure and the turbulent kinetic energy were presented and discussed. The obtained results present an interesting data which can provide the thermal characteristics of the air flow for the designers and the engineers to improve the overall efficiency of an existing solar setup.