Thermal performance analysis of porous medium solar receiver with quartz window to minimize heat flux gradient

• Thermal performance of porous media receiver with quartz window is simulated.
• Receiver with inlet at the side wall is used which accords with application.
• Thermal performance of two porous receiver models are numerically investigated.
• Plano-convex quartz window is adopted for porous receiver to minimize peak heat flux.

Exposure under concentrated solar radiation increases the temperature of volumetric receiver which can cause high thermal stress and damage the receiver. The Plano-convex quartz window is introduced with the aim to minimize heat flux gradient of porous medium receiver. Thermal performance of porous medium receiver with quartz window is numerically studied while the fluid inlet is located at the side wall which would be more practicable. The Monte Carlo ray tracing (MCRT) method is used to calculate the radiative heat transfer in the solar collector system with quartz window, and the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model with the consideration of radiative heat transfer in the porous medium receiver is used to calculate the fluid phase and solid phase temperature distribution of the porous medium receiver. The numerical results indicated that the pressure distribution and temperature distribution for the condition of fluid inlet located at the side wall is different from that for the condition of fluid inlet located at the front surface.