Levelized cost of electricity evaluation of liquid sodium receiver designs through a thermal performance, mechanical reliability, and pressure drop analysis

Assessment of the time resolution used to estimate the central solar receiver lifetime

“…The model used for such end is the analytical one developed by Laporte-Azcué et al [45], which precision was validated against finite elements simulations. It is based on the separation of the temperature profile as the addition of the circumferential and radial components, allowing the superimposition of the thermal stresses resulting from both gradients, and, opposite to previously existing methodologies, such as the ones employed in the work of Conroy et al [14] and Logie et al [46], it considers the temperature dependence of the material properties, which is critical for accurate lifetime calculations. For example, if temperature independent material properties are considered for the thermal stress analysis, the stress may be underestimated up to 20% at the tube crown [17].…”

“…However, the former is a preliminary study that did not consider circumferential variations of the heat flux in the selected tube nor its plastic deformations; this last aspect is also disregarded in [13]. Conroy et al performed a design optimization study of a sodium billboard receiver [14]. They also analyzed the relevance of the aiming strategy on the receiver lifetime [15].…”

Deflection and stresses in solar central receivers

“…Here 𝜌 𝑇 is the thermal bending radius depending only on the thermal bending moments, not the mechanical ones, see equations (23). To represent consistently the displacement in the whole beam, the thermal bending radius has been referred to the centroid (x, y) of the cross section instead of the neutral axis (x* ,y*) and is calculated as: Note that the thermal bending radii 𝜌 𝑇 corresponds to the bending radii 𝜌 in the case of MA, as studied by (Conroy et al, 2018). In the case of the GPS, with the tube bending prevented, the bending radius is infinite since it remains straight, (Logie et al, 2018).…”

“…In these works, different boundary conditions for the tubes have been studied. With an uniform heat flux in a billboard panel, (Conroy et al, 2018) studied the thermal stresses for different tube diameters and materials as part of a creep-fatigue analysis. The tubes were allowed to expand axially and to bend freely.…”

An Optical-Thermal Coupled Model for Performance Analysis of a Molten-Salt Solar Power Tower

“…Logie et al [2] investigated on the heat transfer of liquid salt in a single receiver tube, finding that the receiver efficiency (η R ) of 0.851-0.898 can be obtained under different conditions. Boerema et al [3] and Conroy et al [4] analyzed the heat transfer of sodium in a receiver panel, finding that the ηR of 0.912 can be achieved. Moreover, Singer et al [5] analyzed the efficiency of a whole molten-salt receiver, but they assumed that the tube wall temperature remains unchanged in the circumferential direction.…”