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Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359
www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Thermal performance analysis of porous medium solar receiver

with quartz window to minimize heat ux gradient
Wang Fuqiang a, Tan Jianyu a,, Ma Lanxin a, Shuai Yong b, Tan Heping b, Leng Yu c
a
School of Automobile Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai, 2, West Wenhua Road, Weihai 264209, PR China
b
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, PR China
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tulsa, 800, South Tucker Road, OK 74104, USA

Received 23 May 2014; received in revised form 15 July 2014; accepted 18 July 2014
Available online 9 August 2014

Communicated by: Associate Editor Michael EPSTEIN

Abstract

Exposure under concentrated solar radiation increases the temperature of volumetric receiver which can cause high thermal stress and
damage the receiver. The Plano-convex quartz window is introduced with the aim to minimize heat ux gradient of porous medium
receiver. Thermal performance of porous medium receiver with quartz window is numerically studied while the uid inlet is located
at the side wall which would be more practicable. The Monte Carlo ray tracing (MCRT) method is used to calculate the radiative heat
transfer in the solar collector system with quartz window, and the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model with the consideration of
radiative heat transfer in the porous medium receiver is used to calculate the uid phase and solid phase temperature distribution of the
porous medium receiver. The numerical results indicated that the pressure distribution and temperature distribution for the condition of
uid inlet located at the side wall is dierent from that for the condition of uid inlet located at the front surface.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Volumetric receiver; Porous medium; Radiative transfer; Local thermal non-equilibrium; Quartz window; Thermal performance

1. Introduction Porous medium has the advantages of high uidsolid con-

The comprehensive utilization of solar radiation, eec-
tive conversion of solar radiation to heat and chemical
energy is a subject of primary technological interest
(Segal and Epstein, 2000; Jin et al., 2010). All of these
routes utilize concentrated solar radiation as the energy
source of high temperature process heat (Pitz-Pall et al.,
1997; Hunter and Guo, 2014). The combinations of high
speed uid ow and elevated temperature encountered in
concentrated solar utilization have established porous med-
ium receiver as the primary choice (David et al., 2011).
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 631 5687 782.
E-mail address: Tanjianyu@hitwh.edu.cn (T. Jianyu).
tact surface, low pressure drop with good heat and mass
transfer performance, high anti-oxygenic properties, excel-
lent thermal shock resistance and mechanical strength
(Fend et al., 2004; Bai, 2011).
Silicon carbide (SiC) porous medium demonstrates
superior thermo-mechanical performance and can be
coated with catalyst layer for thermochemical reaction.
Due to its naturally black color and high conductivity,
the porous medium receiver or reactor made of SiC enables
the high performance of concentrated solar radiation col-
lection (Fend et al., 2004). With the advantage of high e-
ciency and low cost, volumetric porous medium receiver
had been put forth through the SOLAIR project to pro-
mote its installation in the next generation European solar

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2014.07.016
0038-092X/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359
Nomenclature
cp specic heat, J/(kg K)
dp particle diameter, mm
Esun solar irradiance, W/m2
hv volumetric heat transfer coecient, W/(m3 K)
ka absorption coecient
ke extinction coecient
ks scattering coecient
n Refractivity
p pressure, pa
R radius, m
Rr random number
Red Reynolds number
T temperature, K
u velocity in x direction, m/s
v velocity in y direction, m/s
x coordinates in x region, m
y coordinates iny region, m
Greek symbols
q density, kg/m3; reectivity
/ porosity
thermal power plant (STPP) (Fend et al., 2004). Besides,
the porous medium solar thermochemical reactor coated
with catalyst was adopted for thermochemical reaction
by both the CNRS-PROMES laboratory (Villafan-
Vidales et al., 2011) and CETRH/CPERI laboratory
(Agraotis et al., 2007).
Many numerical researches of porous medium receiver
under concentrated solar radiation have been conducted,
and the numerical studies can be useful for porous medium
receiver design and operation improvement. The steady
state heat and mass transfer characteristics of porous med-
ium receiver for the tower type STPP were numerically
investigated by Xu et al. (2011), and the uid entrance sur-
face was subjected to a uniform solar radiation during the
numerical simulation. The MCRT and Finite Volume
Method (FVM) coupling method was developed by
Wang et al. (2013, 2014) to research the thermal perfor-
mance of porous medium solar receiver, and the MCRT
method was used to calculate the concentrated solar radia-
tion distribution on the uid entrance surface. Villafan-
Vidales et al. (2011) had investigated the temperature dis-
tribution of porous medium solar thermochemical reactor
under Gaussian heat ux distribution, and the uid
entrance surface was irradiated by concentrated solar radi-
ation during the numerical simulations. A coupled numer-
ical model for volumetric porous medium receiver was
developed by Wu et al. (2011), and several cases of heat
ux distribution change on the uid entrance surface were
conducted. Wang et al. (2014) had developed a heat and
mass transfer model coupled with radiative heat transfer
349
a absorptivity
l dynamic viscosity, kg/(m s)
asf surface area per unit volume, 1/m
k conductivity, W/(m K)
e emissivity
r StefanBoltzmann constant
x albedo coecient
s transmissivity
n characteristic parameter
Subscripts
e eective
f uid phase
r radiative heat transfer
s solid phase
w wall
and thermochemical reaction kinetics for the volumetric
porous medium solar thermochemical reactor, and the uid
inlet surface under Gaussian heat ux distribution was
adopted to study the thermal performance and hydrogen
production performance.
Fig. 1 shows the volumetric solar receiver designed and
manufactured by ETH Zurich (Chueh et al., 2010) and
German Aerospace Center (DLR) respectively (Roger
et al., 2006). As seen from this gure, a quartz window with
high transmissivity was assembled on the front surface of
volumetric solar receiver or reactor with the aim to
decrease heat losses, maintain operating pressure (above
or below atmospheric) and isolate the receiver from the
ambient to prevent undesired reactions (Cui et al., 2013).
According to the literature survey, it can be seen that most
pervious numerical analyses of volumetric porous medium
receiver or thermochemical reactor were conducted with
uid entrance located on the front surface of volumetric
porous medium receiver.
Exposure under concentrated solar radiation increases
the temperature of volumetric receiver or thermochemical
reactor up to 1500 K or even higher (Fend et al., 2004).
The highly non-uniform heat ux distribution across the
solar receiver during operation induces thermal stress
which can cause the mechanical failure of solar receiver
(Khanna et al., 2014). Therefore, an operational design
that can minimize the development of thermal stress is very
essential.
In this study, thermal performance of porous medium
receiver with quartz window is numerically studied and
350 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359

(a) Manufactured by ETH (b) Manufactured by DLR

Fig. 1. Volumetric solar receiver designed and manufactured by ETH and DLR respectively.

the uid entrance is assembled at the side wall which would z

be more practical. The MCRT method is used to calculate
the radiative heat transfer in the solar collector system with
quartz window. The LTNE model with the consideration
Porous media receiver
of radiative heat transfer in the porous strut is solved by
commercial software Fluent to calculate the uid phase
Quartz window
and solid phase temperature distribution. The concentrated
solar radiation calculated by the MCRT method is
y
imported to the thermal performance analysis of porous
medium receiver by tting curve method. The re-radiation
from the porous medium and its absorption and heating
in the window is neglected. Besides, the Plano-convex
quartz window is introduced with the aim to reduce the
radiative heat ux distribution gradient and thus also
reduce thermal stress. The pressure distribution and tem-
perature distribution of porous medium receiver model Dish concentrator
O
with uid inlet located at the side wall is compared with x
that uid inlet located at the front surface.
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the porous medium receiver with solar dish
collector system.
2. Model assumptions

As shown in Fig. 2, the porous medium receiver is
placed vertically on the focal plane of solar dish collector.
Parabolic solar dish collector concentrates the incoming
solar radiation on the uid inlet surface of porous medium
receiver. The front surface of porous medium receiver
absorbs the concentrated solar radiation. Heat is con-
ducted and irradiated along the whole porous strut. When
air ows through the porous medium, heat is transferred
from porous strut to air by conduction and convection
coupled transfer (Xu et al., 2011). The ow and heat
transfer can be simplied to two dimensions. As the air is
transparent, the radiative heat transfer in the uid phase
is not considered.
The porous medium is assumed to be SiC with isotropic
properties. Generally, the ceramic is often deposited with
catalyst layer for thermochemical reactor. The lateral walls
are assumed to be well insulated without any heat losses.
Homogeneous properties of the gas and solid phase are
used, and the thermophysical properties of air vary with
temperature. It is important to note that the pore size of
porous medium receiver is much larger than the mean free
path of the gas molecules, therefore diusion can be mod-
eled using continuum theory. Two porous medium receiver
models shown in Fig. 3 are adopted for numerical study:
model with uid inlet located at the front surface of recei-
ver and model with uid inlet located at the side wall of
 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359 351

L=176 mm

y
Insulation

Concentrated Solar Energy

R=70 mm
Porous medium

Outlet
CFD domain

x
(a) Fluid inlet located at the front surface of receiver
Inlet

y
Insulation
Concentrated Solar Energy

Porous Medium
CFD domain

Outlet

x
(b) Fluid inlet located at the side wall of receiver
Fig. 3. Two porous medium receiver models used for the numerical analyses.

receiver. The dimensions of the length and height are the solar rays intersecting with components, the fate of
same for the two porous medium receiver models. The each ray is determined by emissive, reective, and absorp-
geometrical and physical parameters of parabolic dish tive characteristics on the surface described by series
collector and porous medium solar thermochemical reactor statistical relationships, and the reection direction of each
are listed in Table 1. ray follows the Fresnel optics rule (Cheng et al., 2011;
Dai et al., 2014).
When the reectivity of an opaque surface (no transmit-
3. Mechanism of MCRT method
ted rays) is q, the fate of each ray is tted with the following
correlations
The methodology of MCRT method in solar concentra-
tion and transmission problems is the stochastic trajecto- Rr 6 q; reflection
ries of a huge number of rays (Mao et al., 2014). When the Rr > q; absorption

Table 1 where Rr is a random number which is uniformly distrib-

Geometrical and physical parameters of parabolic dish collector and uted between zero and one.
porous medium solar thermochemical reactor. As a semitransparent surface, such as quartz window,
Parabolic dish concentrator and porous medium reactor Value the transmissivity, reectivity, and absorptivity follow the
Focal length of dish concentrator 3.5 m expression of a + q + s = 1. For semi-transparent medium
Aperture radius of dish concentrator 2.25 m (i.e. quartz window), an equivalent method is proposed by
Length of receiver 0.176 m the authors to calculate the radiative transfer in semitrans-
Radius of receiver 0.07 m
parent medium with high transmissivity (larger than 0.90)
Emissivity of porous medium 0.9
Conductivity of porous medium 118 W/(m K) (Wang et al., 2013): the interaction of ray and the quartz
Specic heat of porous medium 11,500 J/(kg K) window is equivalent to the interaction of ray and two
Density of porous medium 3200 kg/m3 surfaces. Two semitransparent interfaces with refraction
Distance between window and top surface of porous 10 mm ability are served as a substitute for the semi-transparent
Transmissivity of quartz window 0.95
media:
352 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359

Rr 6 ae ; absorbed analysis of porous medium receiver by tting curve

ae < Rr 6 ae qe ; reflected method. Compared to using constant value (Roldan
et al., 2013), the tting curve method can eectively illus-
Rr > ae qe ; refracted
trate the real heat ux distribution on the receiver surface
where Rr is a random number which is uniformly distrib- with very small interpolating error (Mwesigyea et al.,
uted between 0 and 1, ae is the equivalent absorptivity, qe 2014; Wang et al., 2012).
is the equivalent reectivity, and se is the equivalent tans-
missivity. As shown in Fig. 4, the relationship between
the equivalent properties (ae,qe,se) and the total properties 4. Governing equations
(a,q,s) of the quartz window can be expressed as Meng
et al. (2014): 4.1. Continuity equation
 
q qe s2e qe s2e q3e    qe s2e qe = 1  q2e 2
a ae ae se a e se qe ae se q2e ae se q3e @ uqf @ vqf
0 5
   ae ae s e = 1  q e 3 @x @y
2 2 2 2 4 2 6 2
 2 4

s se se qe se qe se qe    se 1 qe qe    In the above correlation, the symbol qf is the density of
 
s2e = 1  q2e 4 uid phase and the symbol u and v delegates the uid
velocity.
As the MCRT method is a stochastic method, the calcu-
lation accuracy of the MCRT method is highly related to
the number of dispatched solar rays and randomness per- 4.2. Momentum equation
formance of the pseudorandom number generator (Cheng
et al., 2014). With the increasing of solar-ray density (emit- The momentum equation for the porous medium solar
ted rays per square meter), the calculation precision of the receiver is expressed by BrinkmanForchheimer Extended
MCRT method increases but the calculation eciency Darcy equation:
decreases. A number of ray-sampling studies are also per-        
qf @u @u @P @ @u @ @u l qf F /
formed for the physical model to ensure the essential phys- u v  lf;e lf;e  f p u u 6
/ @x @y @x @x @x @y @y k k
ics independent of the ray-sampling number. In this study, qf

@v @v

@P @

@v

@

@v
 
lf qf F /

the solar-ray density is set to 107 W/m2 in this study (Wang u v  lf;e lf;e  p v v 7
/ @x @y @y @x @x @y @y k k
et al., 2013). Since quartz is nearly transparent for wave-
lengths over the solar spectrum (0.33 lm, 97% energy of In the above two equations, / represents the porosity of
solar energy in this wavelength range), the spectral eects porous medium receiver, lf,e is the eective dynamic vis-
of the quartz window transmission is not considered for cosity of the uid (lf,e = lf//). The permeability of the
simplication. As known, the transmissivity of quartz win- porous medium k and the geometric function F can be
dow is generally larger than 0.95 (0.95 is used in this study), represented as Alazmi and Vafai (2000):
very little energy is absorbed by the window. Therefore, the
quartz window can be not overheated or failure due to

2
thermal stress. k d 2p /3 = 1501  / 8
p

The concentrated solar radiation calculated by the

F d 2p /3 = 150/3=2 9
MCRT method is imported to the thermal performance

Fig. 4. Schematic of the relationship between equivalent properties and total properties of quartz window.
 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359 353

where dp is the average particle parameter of porous med- where Pr is the uid Prandtl number and Red /qf~ u=lf
ium receiver, and the boundary conditions for the momen- (Xu et al., 2011).
tum equations are: It should be noted that there are many correlations of
the permeability, geometric function and volumetric
Fluid inlet surface: u = u0, v = 0 convection heat transfer coecient for porous medium.
Fluid outlet surface: ou/ox = ou/oy = ov/ox = ov/oy = 0 Take the correlations of volumetric heat transfer coecient
as an example: Hwang et al. (1995),Achenbach (1995),
Dixon and Cresswell (1979) as well as Wu et al. (2011) have
4.3. Energy equation put forward dierent models. Many investigators have
used the permeability, geometric function put forward by
The local thermal non-equilibrium condition is consid- Ergun (1952) and correlations of volumetric convection
ered which can provide more temperature information of heat transfer coecient put forward by Hwang et al.
the uid phase and solid phase (Xu et al., 2011). The energy (1995) simultaneously to study the heat transfer perfor-
equation for the uid phase is expressed by mance of porous medium (Xu et al., 2011; Alazmi and
        Vafai, 2000). The correlations of permeability, geometric
@ qf cp T f @ q f cp T f @ @T f @ @T f
u v kf;e kf;e function and volumetric convection heat transfer coe-
@x @y @x @x @y @y cient for porous medium used in this study are the
hv T s  T f 10 same as those in Ref. (Xu et al., 2011; Alazmi and Vafai,
2000).
And the energy equation for the solid phase is
    In the solid phase energy equation, the source term $ 
@ @T s @ @T s qr is the volumetric heat source term due to radiative heat
kf;e kf;e hv T s  T f r  qr 11
@x @x @y @y transfer. Due to the characteristics of strongly absorbing
solar radiation, the porous medium is large optically
where the symbols Tf and Ts delegate the uid phase tem-
thickness with a short radiation transport mean free path,
perature and solid phase temperature respectively. The
radiation travels only a short distance before being
symbol hv denotes the volumetric convective heat transfer
scattered or absorbed, the local intensity is the result of
coecient between the uid phase and the solid phase.
radiation from only nearby locations (Zhao, 2012). Gener-
The symbols kf;e and ks;e are the eective thermal conduc-
ally, the optical thickness of porous medium is much larger
tivity of the uid and solid phase respectively. The kf;e
than ve (Wang et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2012). Therefore,
and ks,e can be estimated from the following correlations
Rosseland approximation method is used in this study due
kf;e /kf 12 to the simplicity and providing fairly good predictions in
ks;e 1  /ks 13 comparison with experimental results. Invoking the
Rosseland approximation for radiative heat transfer
The volumetric convective heat transfer coecient hv (Modest, 2013) yields
can be expressed as
hv hsf asf 14 4rn2 dT 4
qr  20
where hsf is the heat transfer coecient between the uid 3k e dx
phase and solid phase in [W/m2 K] and asf is the specic where ke is the extinction coecient of porous medium,
surface area of per unit volume in [1/m]. ke = ka + ks. By assuming geometrical optics approxima-
Hwang et al. (1995) had put forward correlations of heat tion, the extinction coecient can be calculated by Tseng
transfer coecient for porous channel and the correlations and Kuo (2002):
were compared by Xu et al. (2011) with experimental
results for porous foam receiver with good agreements. 3e1  /
The correlations of heat transfer coecient at dierent ka 21
2d p
Reynolds number variation range are expressed by:
32  e1  /
ks 22
hsf 0:004d v =d p kf =d p Pr0:33 Re1:35 for Red 6 75 15 2d p
d

hsf 1:064kf =d p Pr0:33 Re0:59 for Red P 350 16 31  /

d ke ka ks 23
dp
For 75 < Red < 350, the heat transfer coecient is
calculated from the interpolation of Eqs. (15) and (16). Generally, the Reynolds number in the porous medium
is low. However, the characteristic of laminar turbulent
asf 20:3461  //2 =d p 17 transition in the porous medium is dierent from that in
the tube or pipe. The research conducted by Kuwahara
d v 4/=asf 18
et al. (2006) indicates that the turbulent eects need to be
up u0 =/ 19 considered when the Reynolds number is higher than 160.
354 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359

k equation z
  
@ uqf k @ vqf k @ lt @k y
l
@x @y @x rk @x
   O
@ lt @k Quartz window x
l Gk  qe 24
@y rk @y
e equation
  
@ uqf e @ vqf e @ l @e
l t
@x @y @x re @x Concentrated solar energy
  
@ l @e
l t
@y rk @y
e 
c1 Gk  c2 qf e 25
k As shown in Fig. 5, the bottom surface of the Plano-convex
where the symbol lt is the turbulent viscosity, rk and re are
the Prandtl numbers of the turbulent kinetic energy and
turbulent dissipation rate respectively, the symbols c1 and
c2 are constant values.
The front surface of porous medium receiver is subjected
to concentrated solar radiation collected by a parabolic
dish concentrator. Prescribed uid temperature is given at
the uid inlet surface, and zero temperature gradient is
given at the uid outlet surface:
Inlet: Tf = 300 K
Outlet: oTf/ox = oTf/oy = oTs/ox = oTs/oy = 0
As the maximum uid phase temperature is as high as
1500 K or higher, the air properties variation with temper-
ature needs to be considered. The correlation of uid heat
capacity change with temperature is (Mulholland, 1995)
cp 1:06  103  0:449T f 1:14  103 T 2f  8
 107 T 3f 1:93  1010 T 4f 26
and the uid conductivity variation with temperature is
(Mulholland, 1995)
k 3:93  103 1:02  104 T f  4:86  108 T 2f
1:52  1011 T 3f 27
Eqs. (26) and (27) are calculated from polynomial curve ts
to a data set for 1001600 K in book (Mulholland, 1995).
Besides, the viscosity variation with temperature is com-
puted by the Sutherland Law and the density is treated
to ideal gas during the numerical calculation.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Heat ux distribution on the front surface of receiver
Quartz window is placed 10 mm in front of the front
surface of porous medium receiver to minimize heat losses.
The Plano-convex quartz window put forward by Shuai
et al. is introduced in this study to decrease the peak
temperature and temperature gradient on the front surface
of porous medium receiver, which in turn can increase the
Fig. 5. Schematic of the Plano-convex quartz window in the local
coordinate.
reliability of porous medium receiver (Shuai et al., 2011).
quartz window is a plane and the top surface of the Plano-
convex quartz window is a convex surface. The equation of
convex surface for the Plano-convex quartz window in the
local coordinate system is expressed by
x2 y 2 z2 n  z 0 28
In the above equation, the symbol n denotes the character-
istic parameter of equation. The curvature of convex
surface changes with the variation of n.
Fig. 6 shows the heat ux distribution on the front sur-
face of porous medium receiver concentrated by a parabolic
dish collector, where the solar irradiance is 400 W/m2 for
suitable porous medium receiver working temperature. As
seen from this gure, the image radius on the front surface
of porous medium receiver is about 30 mm with the peak
heat ux magnitude value of 5.19 MW/m2 for the plane
quartz window condition. With the introducing of Plano-
convex quartz window, the peak heat ux magnitude on
the front surface of porous medium receiver decreases.
The peak heat ux magnitude on the front surface of porous
medium receiver decreases with the increasing of character-
istic parameter n. However, the image radius enlarges with
the increasing of characteristic parameter n to keep the total
energy equilibrium. When the value of characteristic
parameter n is 320, the peak heat ux magnitude on the
front surface of porous medium receiver is 3.90 MW/m2,
and this value decreases to 1.75 MW/m2 when the value
of characteristic parameter n is 240.
In order to avoid the image radius to be larger than the
aperture radius of receiver and working temperature of
porous media receiver to be over high, the Plano-convex
quartz window with n = 280 is used for the thermal perfor-
mance analysis of porous medium receiver. Compared to
the plane window condition, the peak heat ux magnitude
on the front surface of porous medium receiver can be
decreased to 47%, whereas the image radius increases
about 50%.
5.2. Pressure distribution with dierent receiver models
Fig. 7 presents the pressure distribution contours of
the porous medium receiver. Two receiver models are
 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359
(a) Plane window
(c) =280
Fig. 6. Heat ux distribution on the front surface of porous medium receiver calculated by MCRT method (Solar irradiance is 400 W/m2).
considered, the uid inlet located at the front surface of
porous medium receiver and the uid inlet located at the
side wall of porous medium receiver, while the mass ow
rate (m = 0.1 kg/s) and porosity (/ = 0.60) for the two
models are the same. As seen from this gure, the pres-
sure distribution is nearly 1D in the axial direction for
the condition of uid inlet located at the front surface
of receiver and the total pressure decreases gradually
from 0 Pa to 127,063 Pa along the uid ow direction.
For the condition of uid inlet located at the side wall of
receiver condition, the pressure distribution is very dier-
ent from that for the condition of uid inlet located at
the front surface of receiver, the pressure at the uid
inlet surface is 53235.8 Pa and it decreases to
163,777 Pa at the uid outlet surface.
5.3. Temperature distribution with dierent receiver models
In order to compare the temperature distribution
between the condition of uid inlet located at the front
355
(b) =320
(d) =240
surface of receiver and the condition of uid inlet located
at the side wall of receiver, the uid phase temperature dis-
tribution and solid phase temperature distribution con-
tours of porous medium receiver are presented in Fig. 8.
For the condition of uid inlet located at the front surface
of receiver, the maximum uid phase temperature is
1253.4 K which locates at the centerline of porous medium
receiver and about 0.005 m from the front surface of por-
ous medium receiver. However, for the condition of uid
inlet located at the side wall of receiver, the maximum uid
phase temperature is 1981.8 K which locates at the center
point of the front surface of porous medium receiver. For
the condition of uid inlet located at the front surface of
receiver, the uid phase temperature distribution is highly
non-uniform from the front surface to x = 0.065 m. From
x = 0.065 m to the uid outlet surface, the uid phase tem-
perature almost has no variation along the uid ow direc-
tion. The maximum solid phase temperature has a 760.5 K
dierence when the receiver model shifted from the condi-
tion of uid inlet located at the front surface of receiver to
356 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359
(a) Fluid inlet located at the front surface
(b) Fluid inlet located at the side wall
Fig. 7. Pressure (in unit of Pa) distribution contours of the porous
medium receiver with the Plano-convex quartz window (n = 280,
m = 0.1 kg/s, / = 0.60).
(a) TfFluid inlet located at the front surface
(b) TsFluid inlet located at the front surface
Fig. 8. Temperature (in unit of K) distribution contours of the two porous medium receiver models with the Plano-convex quartz window (n = 280,
m = 0.1 kg/s, / = 0.60).
the condition of uid inlet located at the side wall: the max-
imum solid phase temperature of porous medium receiver
is 1386.4 K for the condition of uid inlet located at the
front surface of receiver whereas it increased to 2013.9 K
when the uid inlet located at the side wall. The uid phase
temperature stabilization region locates from L = 0.1 m to
the uid outlet surface for the condition of uid inlet
located at the side wall of receiver.
Fig. 9 illustrates the solid phase temperature and uid
phase temperature distributions along the centerline of
the porous medium receiver for the two receiver model con-
ditions. As seen from this gure, there is little temperature
dierences between the solid phase temperature and uid
phase temperature for the condition of uid inlet located
at the side wall. However, there is a non-equilibrium region
for the condition of uid inlet located at the front surface:
the uid phase temperature is 300 K and the solid phase
temperature is 1386.4 K at the front surface, the solid
phase temperature and uid phase temperature reaches
the thermal equilibrium at x = 10 mm. However, the solid
phase temperature and uid phase temperature at the uid
outlet surface for the condition of uid inlet located at the
side wall are the same as those for the condition of uid
inlet located at the front surface to keep the total energy
balance. Due to the high solid phase temperature and mass
ow rate, the convective heat transfer coecient and con-
vective heat transfer is very high, the thermal equilibrium
(c) TfFluid inlet located at the side wall
(d) TsFluid inlet located at the side wall
 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359 357

2100 According to the above analyses, it can be seen that the

temperature distribution for the condition of uid inlet
1800 located at the side wall is very dierent from that for the
s , Front condition of uid inlet located at the front surface.
1500 f , Front
s , Biliteral 5.4. Eects of uid mass ow rate on temperature
T, ( )

1200 f , Biliteral distribution

900
600
300
0 30 60 90 120
x, (mm)
Fig. 9. Comparisons of temperature distribution along the centerline of
porous medium receiver with the Plano-convex quartz window between
two receiver models (n = 280,m = 0.1 kg/s, / = 0.60).
point is reached with a small ow length. The solid phase
temperature and uid phase temperature stabilized at x
=150 mm along the length direction.
The solid phase temperature distributions on the front
surface for both the condition of uid inlet located at the
front surface of receiver and the condition of uid inlet
located at the side wall of receiver are presented in
Fig. 10. As seen from this gure, the solid phase tempera-
ture decreases sharply from the centerline to the side wall
for the two receiver model conditions. The solid phase tem-
perature at the side wall is 361.1 K for the condition of
uid inlet located at the side wall, whereas it increases to
546.5 K when uid inlet is xed at the front surface. The
temperature gradient at the front wall for the condition
of uid inlet located at the side wall is much higher than
that for the condition of uid inlet located at the front
surface.
As seen from Fig. 9, the temperature dierences between
the uid phase and solid phase (TsTf) is very small for the
condition of uid inlet located at the side wall. Besides, the
mass ow rate inuences on the temperature distribution as
well as (TsTf) for the condition of uid inlet located at the
front surface were widely investigated by previous
150
researches (Wang et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2011). Therefore,
only the eects of uid mass ow rate on the solid phase
temperature distribution for the condition of uid inlet
located at the side wall are considered in this study. The
solid phase temperature distribution is plotted as functions
of distance along the length direction which is presented in
Fig. 11. Three mass ow rates values, m = 0.10, 0.20 and
0.30 kg/s are examined. The remaining parameters are kept
unchanged from those from Fig. 9. Qualitatively similar
trends as those shown in Fig. 9 are presented: the solid
phase temperature decreases along the length direction.
In the same position, the solid phase temperature decreases
with the increasing of uid mass ow rate. For example:
the maximum solid phase temperature is 2013.9 K when
the mass ow rate is 0.1 kg/s, whereas it decreases to
1427.4 K when the mass ow rate increases to 0.3 kg/s.
5.5. Eects of porosity on temperature distribution
The eects of porosity on the temperature distribution
for the condition of uid inlet located at the side wall are
presented in Fig. 12, in which the solid phase temperature
distribution is plotted as functions of distance along the

2100 2100

1800 s , Bileteral 1800 s , v=0.1 kg/s

s , Front s , v=0.2 kg/s
1500 1500 s , v=0.3 kg/s
T, ( )
T, ( )

1200
1200

900
900

600
600

300
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 30 60 90 120 150
y, (mm) x, (mm)

Fig. 10. Comparisons of temperature distribution on the front surface of Fig. 11. Eects of uid mass ow rate on the solid phase temperature
porous medium receiver with the Plano-convex quartz window between distribution for the condition of uid inlet located at the side wall with the
two receiver models (n = 280,m = 0.1 kg/s, / = 0.60). Plano-convex quartz window (n = 280, / = 0.60).
358 W. Fuqiang et al. / Solar Energy 108 (2014) 348359
2100
s , =0.5
1800 s , =0.55
s , =0.60
s , =0.65
T, ( )
1500
1200
900
0 30 60 90 120 150
x, (mm)
Fig. 12. Eects of porosity on the solid phase temperature distribution for
the condition of uid inlet located at the side wall with the Plano-convex
quartz window (n = 280,m = 0.1 kg/s).
length direction. Four porosities, / = 0.50, 0.55, 0.60 and
0.65 are examined. The remaining parameters are kept
unchanged from those from Fig. 9. Similar trends of the
solid phase temperature distribution along the length direc-
tion as those reported in Fig. 9 are observed. As the ow
mass rate is kept unchanged, the solid phase temperature
increases with porosity increasing. For example, the solid
phase temperature is 1797.2 K for / = 0.50, whereas it
increases to 2154.6 K when the porosity is increased to
0.65. However, the solid phase temperature at the uid out-
let surface has little variation with the increasing of porosity.
6. Conclusions
The heat transfer performance of porous medium recei-
ver with quartz window is numerically studied. With the
aim to be more consistent with application, the tempera-
ture distribution of porous medium receiver model with
uid inlet located at the side wall is compared with the con-
dition of uid inlet located at the front surface. The Plano-
convex quartz window is introduced with the aim to mini-
mize the thermal stress of porous medium receiver. The fol-
lowing conclusions have been drawn.
(1) With the introducing of Plano-convex quartz win-
dow, the peak heat ux magnitude on the front sur-
face of porous medium receiver decreases and the
image radius increases to keep energy balance.
(2) The pressure distribution as well as the temperature
distribution for the condition of uid inlet located
at the side wall is very dierent from that for the con-
dition of uid inlet located at the front surface.
(3) As the ow mass rate is kept unchanged, the solid
phase temperature of the porous medium receiver
increases with porosity increasing in the same
position.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51336002),
Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University
(NCET-12-0152), Natural Scientic Research Innovation
Foundation in Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT.NS-
RIF.2011110, HIT.NSRIF. 2015117) and the Foundation
for Guide Scientic and Technological Achievements of
Qingdao (No. 14-2-4-43-jch).
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