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A study of solar chimney coupled to spiral heat exchanger

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 A study of solar chimney coupled to spiral heat
exchanger
Dhahri. A., Omri. A.,
Research Unit: Materials, Energy and Renewable Energies,
University of Gafsa, Sciences Faculty 2112 Gafsa,Tunisia
dhahriamel001@yahoo.fr
Abstract— This work is devoted to characterize the
performance of a solar chimney coupled to a geothermal heat
exchanger during night periods. This system generally consists
of four known devices such as the collector, the tower
(chimney), the turbine and the heating system. The energy
behavior of heating equipment constructed of in-plane spiral
coil tubes was discussed. A tridimensional steady state
numerical study was performed using the CFD software
FLUENT. The developed numerical model was used to assess
the effect of the heating system parameters on the solar
chimney night operation. The results show that: increasing
radius overnight reduces the collector air exit velocity; the
heat flow through the collector and air exit velocity are highly
dependent on the heat exchanger operating conditions; the
exchanger geometrical dimensions (coil pitch and tube
diameter) have a major impact on heat flow through the
collector. In addition, beyond a radius of 80 m, collector heat
losses increase notably.
Keywords—solar chimney, FLUENT, exchanger, spiral; night,
geothermal.
I. INTRODUCTION
With the alarming rate of depletion of the major conventional
energy resources coupled with the environmental degradation
caused by the process of harnessing these energy sources, it
has become an urgent necessity to invest in renewable energy
that would power the future sufficiently without degrading the
environment through green house gas emission. The
renewable energy such as solar and geothermal energy have
for a long time been the primary possibility of generating
energy. Renewable energy technologies constitute a new field
of knowledge and research. A well balanced mix of these
energy sources can secure the energy supply in the less
developed countries and even replace conventional energy
electricity. In the last years, an exciting innovation called solar
chimney has been introduced and has been successfully
demonstrated by experimental and numerical studies.
This system which is suitable to be applied in arid and semi-
arid areas is an advanced way to generate electricity from
solar radiation. The first solar chimney prototype was actually
built and tested in Manzanares (Spanish town 150 kilometers
from Madrid) under the direction of German engineer Jörg
Orfi. J.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Saud
University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh, 11421, KSA
Schlaich, and with funding from the German Ministry research
and technology [1, 2]. The solar chimney is characterized by a
195 high chimney with a constant diameter of 10 m. the solar
collector area extended to a radius of 120 m from the chimney
with the glazing being 1.85 m above the ground. The turbine is
housed at the base of the chimney [3].
The operation of such a plant is strongly dependent on the
amount of solar radiation. The main disadvantage of this
system that it cannot operate continuously during night. For
this reason, many studies suggested different solutions to
guarantee a continuous operation during night hours such as:
The use of the ground under the collector as energy storage
layer [4-8], the usage of closed water-filled tanks [9-11], the
use of water bags [12] and the heat extraction from salt
gradient solar ponds [13]. Other few studies suggested the use
of geothermal water tubes as heating equipment [14,15]. The
authors indicated that introducing geothermal water makes
greater contribution and can achieve a 24 hours-operation.
Since a lack of works on the combination of solar chimney
with geothermal heating device during night has been
detected, the present work proposed to place an auxiliary
heating system constructed of in-plane spiral coil tubes above
the ground. In order to evaluate the effect of this proposition
on the solar chimney performance, a 3D numerical study was
performed in the current work based on the Manzanares
(Spain) prototype as a reference.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND BASIC PRINCIPLE
A. Description of the heating system
The heating system above the ground is composed of poly-
circular tube arranged on the collector floor allows by
exploiting the heat from the geothermal water to heat the air
entering from the periphery of the collector. This system is
connected to a main supply reservoir placed near the location
of the geothermal well. The exploited well is located in the
center of the chimney. The radius of the reservoir is equal to
15 m.The space between turns was fixed at 0.2 m. The
distribution of heat is considered uniform, leading to neglect
local heating heterogeneities along the radius of collector.
The operation of a spiral heat exchanger is simple. The air
flows from the periphery (outermost turn) to the center of the
collector. Water enters the inner turn located in the center of T air,i air temperature across the i-th turn, °C
the collector with a hot temperature and exit at the end of the T air,i+1 air temperature across the i+1-th turn, °C
spiral tube with a cooler temperature. Thus, the mode of m air air mass flow rate, kg/s
circulation of the two fluids (air and water) is cross flow. Main
dimensions and characteristics of the spiral exchanger are m w water mass flow rate, kg/s
summarized in Table 1. Ui overall heat transfer coefficient, W/m2.K
x distance along tube, m
TABLE I. MAIN DIMENSIONS m  wC p ,w Tair ,i  Tw,i   Exp  i   1 (7)
 air C p,air Tair ,i  Tair ,i 1   m
Description Value Unit
Tube diameter 0.2 m The approach considered in this section is to separate the
Water flowrate 85.6 Kg/s geothermal heat exchanger in a sufficient number of portions.
Pitch between tow turns 0.2 m
The water temperature along a plane spiral coil tube (T w, i+1) is
Inner radius 5 m
Outer radius 120 m calculated iteratively from the temperature in the preceding
Turn number 92 turn (T w, i), the air temperature in the vicinity of the coil, and
Inlet water temperature 70 °C the heat flow rate on the preceding turn (fig. 1). In order to
determine the heat transported by geothermal water to the
In the case of in-plane spiral coil tube, the problem is collector indoor air, the water outlet temperature needs to be
complex because the outlet temperatures vary depending on the known. For this reason, an iterative calculation based on (6)
position of the fluid in the exchanger. The calculation of output and (7) must be able to give this temperature at the exit of
temperature is ensured by the equations below. each turn. The inlet temperature is known.
Equations of energy are developed for a turn of the coil. In the
theoretical model, each turn of the heat exchanger is assumed
to be a linear spiral. The radius of the coil at the inlet and outlet
are denoted Ri and R0. α represents the rate of change of the
radius [16,17].
In addition, each full rotation (2π) is approximately
considered circular. The mean radius of i-th turn, Rmi, is given
by:

Rmi  R0   2i  1 (1)

The outside heat transfer area (Ai) of i-th turn is expressed

as follow:
Ai  2 Rmi A0
Where A0 is the heat transfer area per unit tube length.
The energy balance for a small control volume in i-th turn
is given by:
 wC p, wdTw  Ui A0 Tair  Tw  x  dx
m (3)
The integration of (3) leads to the expression:
Tair ,i  Tw,i 1  Tair ,i  Tw,i   Exp  i 
Where
i i   mwC p ,w 
i   AU  (5)
The overall energy balance equation to the i-th turn leads
to:
 wC p,w Tw,i  Tw,i 1   m
m  air C p,air Tair ,i  Tair ,i 1 
Where
Cp, air specific heat capacity of air, J/kg K
Cp, w specific heat capacity of water, J/kg K
(2)
Fig. 1. Descriptive diagram of a spiral exchanger.
The amount of heat transported by the hot water along the
pipe is evaluated by:
 eau C p ,eau Teau ,e  Teau ,s 
Q geoth  m (8)
(4)
B. Basic principle
The conventional solar chimney is characterized by a tall
central chimney surrounded at its base by a circular
greenhouse consisting of a transparent cover supported a few
meters above the ground by a meal frame (fig. 2). Sunlight
passing through the transparent cover causes the air trapped in
the greenhouse to heat up by 10 to 20°C.The hot air rises (hot
air being less dense and thus lighter than cold) up the chimney
tower thereby supplying a natural convective force. It is
(6) replenished by fresh air drawn in at the periphery of the
greenhouse. The energy contained in the updraft air is
converted into mechanical energy by the turbine located at the
base of the chimney and then into electrical energy by
generators.
 Since southern Tunisia is characterized by hot water
sources with temperatures ranging from 65 to 80° C [18], the
heat supply by geothermal energy can overcome the deficits of
sunshine. In the absence of solar radiation (during night
hours), the process of the hybrid system (fig. 3) works in this
way: Warm water pumped from the reservoir goes directly
through pipes placed above the ground under the collector
roof. The exploited geothermal well is located in the center of
the chimney. The heat exchanger supply heat to the indoor air
in the collector zone. The water cools down due to the heat
exchange process that occurs with the indoor air. The hot air
migrates from the solar collector to chimney bottom and rises
to the top of the chimney.
Fig. 2. Conventional Solar chimney power plant scheme.
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of a solar chimney coupled with a
spiral exchanger.
III. NUMERICAL APPROACH AND BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
Due to the fact that the Manzanares chimney was the first
successful experimental prototype in the world, published
numerical investigations have considered the main dimensions
of studied models similar to those of the Spanish prototype.
The system geometry consists of a chimney with 195 m height
and 5 m radius surrounded by a collector with 120 m radius
and 1.85 m height [1]. The chimney and the collector are
separated by a transition section where it is placed a turbine
driven by the updraft.
The physical domain was modeled and meshed using the pre-
processor GAMBIT. The computational domain was
decomposed into three simple parts (collector, transition
section and tower) whose mesh was generated separately. Due
to the strong pressure gradient in the transition section, we
needed to use fine tetrahedral grids in this part while for the
other parts we applied hexahedral mesh. An inlet pressure
boundary condition type was specified at the collector inlet. At
the chimney exit a pressure outlet boundary condition was
selected. Non-slip conditions are imposed on the walls. The
chimney walls are considered to be adiabatic.
The numerical simulation of turbulent flow is performed for
3D case of a solar chimney power plant. During the
simulation, the conservation equations for mass, momentum
and energy were selected and solved numerically using the
finite volume method [19]. During simulation, the turbulence
model k-ɛ standard was used. The SIMPLE algorithm is used
to solve the coupling between pressure and velocity. Pressure
interpolation was done using the PRESTO method. The model
was solved with a standard second order upwind discretization
scheme. The discrete ordinates method (DO) was used to
calculate the radiation heat transfer. A numerical solution is
assumed converged when the residuals of the continuity
equation, momentum equation and velocity components
become smaller than 10-3. For the energy equation and the
discrete ordinate equation the convergence criterion should be
under 10-6. The thermo-physical properties of the fluid are
assumed constant except the density (Boussinesq
approximation is assumed to be valid). The grid independence
test indicates that the total appropriate cell number is about
1228452 cells [20].
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the current work, we perform a parametric study to identify the
important variables that affect the performance of a geothermal-
solar chimney during night. The mathematical model was
successfully validated through comparison with experimental data
from the Manzanares plant and numerical results available in the
literature [20].
A. Effect of the collector radius
Fig. 4 indicates the effect of different collector radius (40, 60,
80, 100, 120 and 140 m) on the air exit velocity.
2,5
2,0
Air velocity (m/s)
1,5
1,0
0,5
0,0
40 60 80 100 120 140
Radius (m)
Fig. 4. Air velocity variation against collector radius.
A constant water temperature equal to 70 °C was considered.
The results presented in fig. 4 are derived from an analysis
carried out with a total water flow rate of 85.6 kg /s. These
results highlight a marked influence of the collector radius.
After various numerical tests, it was found that the air velocity
at the outlet of the collector drop significantly as the radius
increases.
effect of centrifugal force (due to the curvature of the tube).
This leads ultimately to the reduction of the secondary flow
(Dean Effect) for largest coil diameter. The intensity of the
secondary flow developed in the tube is a function of its
diameter and the coil diameter [21-24].
10900

B. Coil pitch effect 10800

Heat flow rate (kW)

The pitch between consecutive turns plays an essential role on
the design of spiral heat exchangers. Tests were carried out to 10700
study the effect of the pitch between consecutive turns on the
amount of heat exchanged between the geothermal water and 10600
air flowing in the collector (fig. 5).
10500
10950
10900 10400

10850 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0

Heat flow rate (kW)

10800 Tube diameter(m)

10750
10700 Fig. 6. Effect of tube diameter on the heat flow rate variation.
10650
10600
10550 D. Water flow rate effect
0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 In order to examine the effect of geothermal water flow rate
Coil pitch (m)
on heat transfer performance of the heating system, fig. 7
displays the variation of the amount of heat as a function of the
water flow along the spiral coil tube. For a constant collector
Fig. 5. Variation of heat flow rate against the coil pitch. radius (120 m) and a given geothermal water temperature
(70°C), the water flow rate was varied from 85.6 to 214 kg/s.
We chose to vary the pitch between 0.2 and 1 m. Note that
increasing the pitch leads to a reduction of the number of turns
2,0
which varies from 92 to 19. As observed in the fig. 5, for a 26000
Heat flow rate
pitch ranging from 0.2 to 0.4 m, increasing the pitch causes 24000 Air Velocity
the increase in heat flow rate. Beyond these values, the 1,5
22000
increase in the pitch will result in a lower amount of heat. The
Heat flow rate (kW)

Air velocity (m/s)

20000
calculated data show clearly the influence of the pitch
variation on the functioning of the spiral heat exchanger. So 18000 1,0
maintaining a constant pitch is one of the key parameters that 16000
guarantee a good performance. In addition, it is necessary to 14000 0,5
maintain a sufficient distance between the tubes so that air can 12000
circulate easily between the turns.
10000
0,0
80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220
C. Tube diameter effect Water flow rate (kg/s)

The fig. 6 illustrates the variation of the amount of heat

transferred from hot water vs. the tube diameter. The tests are
carried out by varying the diameter from 0.2 to 1 m. In this Fig. 7. Effect of water flow rate.
section, the water flow rate, the coil pitch and the size of the
collector are maintained at fixed values. It can be seen that the
increase in tube diameter can significantly affect the rate of
heat transferred to the internal air. For a diameter value less As expected, we can notice in fig. 7 that it is advantageous
than 0.4 m, the heating capacity increases. It is interesting to to increase the total flow of geothermal water. All calculations
note that beyond this value, the heat flow recovered from the were made with the same geometrical parameters of
hot water decreases. This may be due to the reduction of the Manzanares prototype. Seven tests were performed by varying
the flow rate with an increment of 21.4 kg/s. The higher the
water flow rate, the greater the amount of heat recovered by the 4000
air passing through the collector. The fig. 7 also confirms that it
is preferable to increase the water inlet flow rate to obtain 3000
higher air velocities.
2000

Heat losses (kW)

E. Water inlet temperature effect 1000
In order to judge the effect of water inlet temperature on 0
heat flow rate, the numerical tests are performed at a specific
water flow rate (85.6 kg/s) and for a water temperature ranging -1000
from 55 to 75 ° C.
-2000

-3000
13000
40 60 80 100 120 140
12000 Radius (m)

11000
Heat flux (kW)

Fig. 9. Collector heat losses as a function of radius.

10000

9000
8000
7000
55 60 65 70
Water inlet temperature (°C)
Fig. 8. Heat flow rate as a function of radius.
Geometric dimensions of this case were set the same as
those of Manzanares prototype. Fig. 8 shows a net increase of
the geothermal power. In addition, this figure indicates that the
difference between the quantities of heat supplied by the heat
exchanger can reach 12.38% on average. It can be concluded
that the more the operating temperatures and input flow rate are
well chosen, the more efficiently the geothermal heat
exchanger will operate.
F. Collector heat losses
To evaluate the effect of radius on heat dissipation rate in the
collector, the radius was varying from 40 to 140 m. For a value
less than 80 m, any increase of the radius leads to the increase
of the collector energy losses (fig. 9). In the case of a radius
equal to 100 m, the lower energy losses are mainly due to the
decrease of convective losses in the outer surface of the cover.
Exceeding 120 m, the temperature of indoor air is lower than
the outside air. A temperature inversion appears and convective
exchange from the cover to the outside air in the opposite
direction is observed. This phenomenon occurs because
thermal losses through the cover are very high and the cover
temperature may drop several degrees below the outside air
temperature.
V. CONCLUSION
A computational study was conducted to examine the night
operation of a solar chimney combined to a geothermal heat
exchanger. The use of geothermal water is an advantageous
75
solution due to its ability to ensure a continuous operation of
the plant by fulfilling the nocturnal power demand. This work
has identified the parameters affecting the system performance
overnight. The Analysis of the combined system behavior leads
to the following findings:
- The air exit velocity at night depends strongly on the
size of the collector.
- The use of geothermal energy may improve the
operation of the solar chimney overnight.
- The geometrical dimensions of the heating device
(coil pitch and tube diameter) have a prominent
impact on the heat transfer process.
- The heat transfer rate absorbed by the indoor air is
highly dependent on the exchanger operating
conditions (inlet temperature and water flow rate).
The higher these parameters, the greater the air
velocity at the exit of the collector.
- Heat losses through the collector cover increase
notably once the collector radius is beyond 80 m. for a
radius exceeding 120 m, a temperature inversion
phenomenon appears and convective exchange from
the cover to the outside air in the opposite direction is
observed.
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