Volume 8 Issue 2 ( June 2021 )

This paper presents and discusses a novel Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation of a solar air heater as part of the updraft air tower model for an electrical power generation. A solar air heater is built upon double transparent upper skin to capture the solar energy and create the greenhouse effect, which is forming hot air flow into power generator part. The influence of different transparent skin geometrical of the proposed solar air heater on the tower power plant performance at various operational parameters have been simulated and evaluated using ANSYS Fluent software to solved the Navier-Stockes and energy equations integrated with discrete ordinates (DO) radiation model. The evaluation result demonstrates that as the number of skin solar air heater in collector increases, also the area of these air heaters, the system performance enhances.

Keywords: energy recovery; solar air heater; solar chimney power plant; solar air collector