ANSYS CFD and Heat Transfer Analysis on Heat Flow of Solar Updraft Tower Power Plant

Tang, Xiang Hui (2018) ANSYS CFD and Heat Transfer Analysis on Heat Flow of Solar Updraft Tower Power Plant. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Solar Updraft Tower Power Plant which also known as Solar Chimney Power Generation Plant is a type of power plant that utilizing the combination of solar heat collector and an updraft tower located at the centre of the power plant to generate a solar induced convective flow which drives the wind turbines and generate electricity through a generator. The general purpose of this dissertation is to study the viability of solar updraft tower in Malaysia. Solar updraft tower power plant energy generation had been studied previously and proved as a promising future of solar energy application to generate electricity. Several prototypes were built by different countries such as Spain, China & Australia to studies the characteristics and efficiency of this technology. The literature review in this paper present the general history and previous development of the solar updraft tower power plant technology. The working principle of the system was reviewed and the major essential elements were explained. The effect of greenhouse effect, buoyancy-driven flow and heat transfer characteristics of the power plant was studied. As in the computational fluid dynamics simulation, the radiative heat transfer equation was solved by discrete ordinates (DO) radiation model using a two-band radiation model on visible and radiation wavelength band. The three-dimensional model was solved with RNG k-ɛ turbulence model with full buoyancy effect enabled. The solar radiation effect was simulated by the solar ray tracing algorithm built-in and coupled to the calculation via source term in energy equation. In this paper, four major parameters, velocity, mass flow rate, temperature rises and power output were determined by ANSYS CFD numerical studies to understand the operating principle of this power plant. The heat flow characteristics and heat transfer of the system was studied. The results obtained was then compared with the available data from the first prototype in Manzanares to validate the accuracy of the simulation. Besides, this paper also studies the effect of weather condition in Malaysia on the power output and viability on implementation. Another analysis was performed to determine the effect of diverging chimney tower design on the efficiency of the power plant.