Solar receiver endurance assessment under non-conventional operation modes Articles uri icon

publication date

  • September 2024

volume

  • 231

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0960-1481

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1879-0682

abstract

  • Central receiver endurance in solar power tower plants is a critical aspect to ensure their viability. In this work, two receiver configurations, with and without flow path crossover, are compared in thermal and mechanical performance. Considering their thermomechanical limits during operation, results show that panels in the crossover configuration would endure from 1.22 to 2 times that in the no-crossover, just marginally penalising its thermal efficiency. Additionally, two plant operation strategies are compared: continuous operation and nighttime strategy. The former results in 1.89-times more damage but roughly a 1.9-times increase in energy output, obtaining a practically constant trade-off between damage and energy generation for these two strategies. Lastly, the effect of considering either a linear or bilinear (interaction point set at 0.05,0.05) creep/fatigue damage interaction is explored. While producing more conservative results, linear interaction error is below 3 % in the most critical receiver regions. Such a low discrepancy is caused by the creep-damage dominance over fatigue in the most critical regions. Other areas show heavier creep-fatigue interaction, resulting in larger error, but these areas obtain times to failure much longer than expected receiver lifespan.

keywords

  • creep-fatigue interaction; receiver lifetime; solar tower plant; thermal energy storage; thermomechanical analysis; tubular solar receiver