Numerical Simulation of a Solar Chimney Power Plant

This study investigates the buoyancy-driven flow and heattransfer characteristics through a solar chimney power plantsystem. For this purpose, a three-dimensional unsteadymodel with the RNG k-ε turbulence closure was developed,using computational fluid dynamics techniques. In thismodel, to solve the radiative transfer equation the discreteordinates (DO) radiation model was implemented, using atwo-band radiation model. To simulate radiation effectsfrom the sun’s rays, the solar ray tracing algorithm wascoupled to the calculation via a source term in the energyequation. Simulations were carried out for a system with thegeometry parameters of the Manzanares power plant. Basedon the numerical results, the velocity and temperaturedistributions were illustrated and the results were validatedby comparing with experimental data of the Manzanaresprototype power plant.