Dynamic simulation and parametric influence analysis on thermal performance of a quartz tube solid particle receiver in solar tower power plants

Due to a higher operating temperature (≥800 °C), Solar Particle Receiver (SPR) which uses particles as the working medium is considered as one of best candidates to improve the thermoelectric conversion efficiency of concentrating solar power plants. In this paper, a quartz tube solid particle receiver model is fully developed by using the discretized lumped parameter method, in which the calculation process of particle temperature and thermal loss is clearly given. In order to improve the manipulation level of particle receiver during the operation, the dynamic characteristics of the quartz tube particle receiver are comprehensively studied by the disturbance test of selected input parameters. Besides, in order to grasp the influence rule of key parameters on the thermal performance of particle receiver, the key parameters’ sensitivity analysis is also deeply studied. The results show that the particle outlet temperature can reach as high as 810 °C under a relatively small value of solar flux 600 kW/m², but the receiver efficiency is only about 75%; Besides, the receiver efficiency shows a variation tendency that it rises first falls afterwards with the increase of incident solar flux. The validity of proposed model is verified by a heating experimental system with a single quartz tube, and the relative error is not more than 7.9%. The research results are beneficial for understanding the dynamic characteristics and designing the particle receiver.