The Power and Efficiency Analyses of the Cylindrical Cavity Receiver on the Solar Stirling Engine

Abstract

The technique of solar dish and Stirling engine combination is the most challenging and promising one. For the efficient conversion of the externally concentrated heat to the usable power, we studied the influences of the wall temperature, inclination angle, and open area ratio of the receiver on the Stirling engine power and efficiency. The theoretical analysis of the heat exchange element of the solar Stirling engine was performed, and the simulation model of the cavity absorber was built and analyzed. The temperature cloud and heat loss trends of the receiver under different wall temperatures, inclination angles, and opening ratios were illustrated. When the wall temperature of the absorber changes from 700 to 1000 K, the efficiency of the engine has increased by 8.8% from 21.34% to 30.11%. The higher the temperature, the higher the efficiency. As the inclination angle of the absorber increases from 0° to 60°, the efficiency of the engine is increased by 7.7% from 21.1% to 28.8%. With the increases of the aperture ratio, the engine output and efficiency reduced. The engine efficiency at the aperture ratio of 0.5 is 4% larger than that at the aperture ratio of 1.

Keywords

• solar Stirling engine
• heat loss analysis
• cavity receiver
• performance simulation
• power
• efficiency