Characterization of a microchannel solar thermal receiver for a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) is presented. The receiver design is based on conjugate computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer simulations as well as thermo-mechanical stress analysis. Two receivers are fabricated and experimentally characterized — a parallel microchannel design and a microscale pin fin array design. Lab-scale experiments have been used to demonstrate the receiver integrity at the design pressure of 125 bar at 750°C surface temperature. A concentrated solar simulator was designed and assembled to characterize the thermal performance of the lab scale receiver test articles. Results indicate that, for a fixed exit fluid temperature of 650°C, increase in incident heat flux results in an increase in receiver and thermal efficiency. At a fixed heat flux, efficiency decreased with an increase in receiver surface temperature. The ability to absorb flux of up to 100 W/cm2 at thermal efficiency in excess of 90 percent and exit fluid temperature of 650°C using the microchannel receiver is demonstrated. Pressure drop for the pin array at the maximum flow rate for heat transfer experiments is less than 0.64 percent of line pressure.
Experimental Investigation on thermal-hydraulic performance of microchannel heat sink with airfoil pin fin array and supercritical carbon dioxide
