Simulation of nanomaterial flow within an absorber duct of LFR solar system under the influence of complex turbulator

Abstract

In this work, for decreasing the irreversibility of system and augmenting the thermal performance, hybrid nanomaterial was utilized as testing fluid inside the pipe of concentrating solar unit with presence of complex disturber device. The base fluid for this domestic usage is water and concentration of each nanoparticle is 0.01, thus, assumption of homogeneous fluid is correct. After finding the best position and angles of minors as primary concentrator, Monte-Carlo method has been incorporated to measure the outer wall's boundary condition. Then, FVM was hired for 3D modeling of hybrid nanofluid flow with incorporation of k-ε technique. As hybrid nanoparticles have been dispersed into water, the pressure drop and frictional irreversibility (Sgen,f) augment around 7.98% and 5.02% while heating irreversibility (Sgen,h) declines around 4.01% when BR= 0.24, PR= 0.15, Q= 15. Increase of PR leads to greater mixing and Sgen,f augments around 74.3% due to augment of swirl flow but Sgen,h decreases about 47.41%. Considering higher Q can augment the radial velocity and stronger resistance with wall leads to increase of Sgen,f about 357.21% whereas Sgen,h reduces about 81.56%.

Keywords

• Linear Fresnel solar unit
• Entropy generation
• Hybrid nanomaterial
• Complex disturber
• Numerical modeling