Simulation and experimental study of the influence of the baffles on solar chimney power plant system

Abstract

The solar chimney power plant system (abbreviated as SCPPS) is a clean and pollution-free facility for generating electric power. To improve the generating efficiency, a bank of baffles can be arranged under the collector in SCPPS. ANSYS Fluent 18.2 was used to numerically simulate 3D models of SCPPS with or without baffles, and an experimental apparatus was built for verification. There are seven different types of model discussed here: the SCPPS without baffles (prototype), and other six types of models with different baffles (a-type, b-type, c-type, d-type, e-type, and f-type). The pressure fields, temperature fields, velocity fields, and power outputs of different models under the different baffles are discussed. It is shown that the addition of baffles in the system can increase the temperature field, pressure field, velocity field, and power output to varying degrees, but b-type baffles better improve the temperature and velocity uniformity of the system, and intensify the output power. For b-type, the simulation of the systems with five different baffle numbers (3, 4, 6, 8, and 12, respectively) was carried out, and it was concluded that the system with 12 baffles is the best in improving the system performance. It can be seen that the more the number of baffles, the better the performance of SCPPS. The experiments are also verified the simulation.