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Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385

www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Coupled radiation and flow modeling in ceramic foam volumetric

solar air receivers
Zhiyong Wu a,⇑, Cyril Caliot b, Gilles Flamant b, Zhifeng Wang a
a
The Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic System, IEE-CAS, Beijing 100190, China
b
Processes, Materials, and Solar Energy Laboratory, PROMES CNRS, 7 Rue du Four Solaire, 66120 Font-Romeu, France

Received 24 December 2010; received in revised form 23 June 2011; accepted 28 June 2011
Available online 23 July 2011

Communicated by: Associate Editor Avi Kribus

Abstract

Ceramic foams are promising materials for the absorber of volumetric solar air receivers in concentrated solar thermal power (CSP)
receivers. The macroscopic temperature distribution in the volumetric solar air receiver is crucial to guarantee that volumetric solar air
receivers work steadily, safely and above all, efficiently. This study analyzes the temperature distribution of the fluid and solid phases in
volumetric solar air receivers. The pressure drop in the ceramic foams and the interfacial heat transfer between the flowing fluid and solid
are included in the model. The radiative heat transfers due to concentrated solar radiation absorption by the ceramic foam and the radi-
ation transport in the media were modeled with the P1 approximation. The energy fields of the fluid and solid phases were obtained using
the local thermal non-equilibrium model (LTNE). Comparison of the macroscopic model with experimental results shows that the mac-
roscopic model can be used to predict the performance of solar air receivers. Sensitivity studies were conducted to analyze the effects of
velocity, porosity, mean cell size and the thermal conductivity of the solid phase on the temperature fields. The results illustrate that the
thermal non-equilibrium phenomena are locally important, and the mean cell size has a dominant effect on the temperature field.
Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Volumetric solar air receiver; Ceramic foam; P1 model; Local thermal non-equilibrium model; CFD

1. Introduction
The large specific surface area of porous media and the
tortuous flow path inside the porous media make it a useful
material for many industrial applications, especially in
applications where the heat transfer is important. Cellular
ceramics are promising materials for the absorbers of volu-
metric solar receivers in concentrated solar thermal power.
The knowledge of the temperature difference between the
flowing fluid and the solid matrix, and its influencing factors
are crucial to the entire system where the porous media is
used as the heat exchanger. In CSP technology, this
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: No. 6 Beiertiao, Zhongguancun,
100190 Beijing, China. Tel.: +86 10 82547037; fax: +86 10 62587946.
E-mail address: wuzhiyongspecial@gmail.com (Z. Wu).
knowledge is linked with the solar air receivers0 safety, effi-
ciency, operability and the robustness of the whole solar
tower power plant.
Studies of the temperature field inside porous media have
widely used the local thermal non-equilibrium model
(Alazmi and Vafai, 2002; Kim and Jang, 2002; Khashan
et al., 2006; Nouri-Borujerdi et al., 2007; Hayes et al.,
2008). However, the radiation heat transfer has not been
taken into account in these studies. The radiation heat
transfer plays a dominant role in the heat transfer when
the porous is in a high temperature environment (Zhao
et al.,2004a,b). The working temperature of volumetric solar
receiver is very high, generally range from ambient tempera-
ture to 1000 °C or higher. Thus the radiation heat transfer is
important. Volumetric solar receivers have been studied for
more than 20 years. Flamant et al. (Flamant et al., 1988) and

0038-092X/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solener.2011.06.030
 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385 2375

Nomenclature

C1,C2 k - e model constants Greek symbols

cp thermal capacity (J kg1 K1) a absorptivity
d mean cell size (m) r Stefan–Boltzmann constant
DNI direct normal irradiance (kW m2) b extinction coefficient (m1)
F source term representing the pressure drop in k thermal conductivity (Wm1 K1)
the porous media rs scattering coefficient (m1)
Gi generation rate of the intrinsic average of kt / porosity
hlv local volumetric heat transfer coefficient q density (kg m3)
(Wm3 K1) l dynamic viscosity (kg m1 s1)
I radiation intensity (Wm2 sr1) m kinematic viscosity (m2 s1)
K1 permeability coefficient (m2) e dissipation rate (m2 s3)
K2 inertial coefficient (m1) ee apparent emissivity
k absorption coefficient (m1) rk, re k  e model constants
kt turbulence kinetic energy (m2 s2)
Nulv Nusselt number based on hlv Subscripts
P pressure (Pa) c conduction
Pi production rate of hktii due to gradients of uD eff effective
q heat source (Wm3) f fluid
Q heat flux (Wm2) in inlet
Re Reynolds number (qud/l) out outlet
T temperature (K) r radiation

uD superficial velocity (m s1) s solid
u 0
velocity fluctuation (m s1) v volume
x x-direction coordinate (m) lv local and volumetric
z z-direction coordinate (m)
r cylindrical coordinate (m) Superscripts
i volume average

Variot et al. (Variaot et al., 1994) investigated the combined
heat transfer in a two-slab selective volumetric solar air
receiver made of a multilayer packed bed. Pitz-Paal et al.
(Pitz-Paal et al., 1991) numerically investigated the air and
wall temperature distribution in a selective solar receiver
which consisted of a ceramic foil receiver covered by a matrix
of square channels of quartz glass. These volumetric solar
receivers used the same selective absorptive concept in which
the maximum temperature locates inside of the volumetric
solar receiver. However, because of the complexity of the
structures, the selective-absorbing volumetric solar receiver
has not been studied much more. Researchers then switched
to a volumetric solar receiver structure without a semitrans-
parent layer. Fend et al. (Fend et al., 2004) proposed an ideal
temperature distribution in the solid phase where the maxi-
mum temperature is located inside the absorber. However,
experimental data in the literature (Fend et al., 2004) illus-
trated that the maximum temperature is still located at the
front surface of the absorber. So this ideal temperature dis-
tribution is very difficult to attain.
The geometric properties (mean cell size, porosity and
the shape of the strut cross-section), optical properties
(absorptivity, extinction coefficient and scattering phase
function), thermo-physical properties (thermal conductivity
and thermal capacity) of ceramic foam materials and the
fluid properties jointly affect the performance of a volumet-
ric solar receiver. To design a volumetric solar air receiver
with a favorable temperature distribution, we need to know
the effects of these parameters on the volumetric solar recei-
ver performances. This study simulates the temperature dis-
tribution of the fluid and solid phases in a volumetric solar
air receiver by solving the coupled volume-averaged govern-
ing equations. The studied ceramic foam, see Fig. 1, was
assumed isotropic, homogenous and with temperature
independent properties. The governing equations were
volume-averaged. The pressure drop of ceramic foams,
the interfacial heat transfer between the flowing fluid and
the solid, and the radiation heat transfer due the concen-
trated solar irradiance and inside the ceramic foams were
included. The pressure drop was calculated using a non-
Darcian model. The energy equations of the fluid and solid
phases used a local thermal non-equilibrium model with the
concentrated solar irradiance been treated as a distributed
heat source to the solid phase. The thermal radiation heat
transfer between strut surfaces was computed with the P1
model. The macroscopic model was then used to study
the impact of various factors (porosity, mean cell size,
etc.) on the temperature field. The macroscopic temperature
2376 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385

Fig. 1. The studied ceramic foam material.

distributions of the fluid and solid phases in the volumetric negligible; and (e) because the absorber is far larger than
solar air receiver were obtained through this study. the mean cell size of the ceramic foam, the border effects
were neglected. With these assumptions, the volume-
2. Mathematical model averaged continuity and momentum equations are:
r  qf uD ¼ 0 ð1Þ
2.1. Flow modeling   
uD uD  
r  qf ¼ r /hP ii þ lr2 uD þ r
Transport phenomena in porous media are strongly /
affected by the complexity of the internal morphology of 
 /qf hu0 u0 ii þ /F ð2Þ
porous media, which is extremely complicated in general.
In addition, the pore size is usually 0.5–3 mm. These realities Where symbols hi mean the volumetric average.  uD is the
make quantitative studies of the flow and heat transfer in volume average velocity, which is also called the superficial
porous media very difficult, either by experiments or simula- velocity. qf u0 u0 is the Reynolds stress. F is the pressure drop

P
tions. However, engineers are usually only interested at the 3
resulting from porous media with F ¼  uD þ
j¼1 Dij l
macroscopic phenomena, instead of pore-scale phenomena P3 1
in porous media. Consequently, macroscopic descriptions uD juD Þ, where Dij and Cij are second-rank ten-
j¼1 C ij 2 qj
such as the volume averaging methodology, are the tool of sors. For homogenous porous media, these
two second-rank
choice (Lage et al., 2002). Indeed, with the macroscopic l
tensors are unit tensors, thus F ¼  K1
uD þ Kq2 j
uD j
uD Þ
model, all the complex geometry of porous media need not
be described. This approach greatly reduces the complexity where K1 is the permeability coefficient, and K2 is the iner-
of the physical problem and the cost of computations. The tial coefficient.
overall effects of the solid phase are taken into account in The macroscopic turbulence equations are also obtained
the macroscopic model by adding source terms to the by taking the volume average of the standard turbulence
governing equations of clear fluid. When considering the vol- kinetic energy and the dissipation rate equations:
ume-average (Quintard andWhitaker, 1994) of the governing   
 i l  i i
equations of the turbulent flow in porous media, there are r  qf uD hk t i ¼ r  l þ te r /hk t i þ P i þ Gi  qf /hei
rk
four available methodologies for developing macroscopic
turbulence models (Lage et al., 2002; De Lemos, 2005). How- ð3Þ
ever, some of the final equations are not yet closed or they   
 i lt e  i heii
can not be validated due to the lack of experimental data. r  qf uD hei ¼ r  l þ r /hei þ C 1 P i i
re hk t i
For this reason, the existing semi-empirical governing equa-
i
tions were used to describe the turbulent flow in porous hei  i
þ C2 i Gi  qf /hei ð4Þ
media (Pedras and de Lemos, 2001a,b; de Lemos, 2006; De hk t i
Lemos and Saito, 2008).
The following assumptions are made to address the where C1, C2, rk and re are k  e model constants, Pi is the
governing equations: (a) the porosity is uniform within production rate of hktii due to gradients of uD and Gi is the
the porous matrix; (b) the flow field is steady and turbulent, generation rate of the intrinsic average of kt due to the
and the absolute mean fluid velocity is in the range of action of the porous matrix (De Lemos and Saito,
1–15 m/s; (c) the thermo-physical properties of the solid 2008a,b).
  
phase are constant and the thermo-physical properties of   l  
the fluid phase are variable because of the large tempera- r  qf uD hk t ii ¼ r  l þ te r /hk t ii þ P i þ Gi
rk
ture range; (d) the effects of buoyancy, hydrodynamic i
dispersion, viscous dissipation and thermal expansion are  qf /hei ð5Þ
 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385
   i
 i lte  i hei
r  qf 
uD hei ¼ r  lþ r /hei þ C 1 P i i ing media with homogeneous and gray radiative properties.
re hk t i
heii  i
þ C2 i Gi  qf /hei
hk t i
Because of the high working temperature of the volu-
metric solar receiver, the air properties are defined as vari-
ables in this study, namely the thermal capacity:
cp ¼ 1:93  1010 T 4f  8  107 T 3f þ 1:14  103 T 2f
 4:49  101 T f þ 1:06  103
The thermal conductivity:
k ¼ 1:52  1011 T 3f  4:86  108 T 2f þ 1:02  104 T f
 3:93  103
Eqs. (5) and (6) are calculated from polynomial curve
fits to a data set for 100–1600 K in book ( Mulholland,
1995). In addition, the viscosity was calculated through
Sutherland Law. The air was treated as ideal gas when
computing the density and the gravity is neglected.
2.2. Heat transfer modeling
The governing equation for the energy conservation is a
volume-averaged equation. Two approaches, the local
thermal equilibrium model (LTE) and the local thermal
non-equilibrium model (LTNE), were widely used to treat
the energy conservation in porous media. In this study, we
used the LTNE model because this model can provide
more temperature information of the air receiver. The
LTNE has two energy equations for the fluid and solid
phases respectively:

i  i  i
r  ðqcp Þf 
uD hT f i ¼ r  keff ;f  rhT f i þ hv hT s i  hT f i
 i  i i
0 ¼ r  keff ;s  rhT s i þ hv hT s i  hT f i þ r  qr
The energy coupling of the solid and fluid phases is real-
ized by the volumetric convection term, hv, in their energy
balance equations. A radiative source term is included in
the energy balance equation for the solid phase, $  qr,
which is the divergence of the radiative flux.
2.3. Radiative transfer modeling
The difficulty of solving the radiative transfer equation
lies in the fact that the radiation intensity depends on the
position and on the direction. Hence, the deterministic meth-
ods ( Modest, 2003) such as the Discrete Ordinates or the
Finite Volume methods require computing the radiation
intensity at each node of the domain and discretizing both
the domain and the direction of radiation propagation.
The computational time associated with such methods can
become prohibitive, especially when strongly scattering
media are involved. In the present study, the ceramic foam
2377
is considered as an absorbing, emitting and isotropic scatter-
Furthermore, since the ceramic foam strongly absorbs the
solar radiation, the ceramic foam is considered to be opti-
ð6Þ
cally thick with a short radiation transport mean free path.
The P1 model is suitable for optically thick media and is
not time consuming. Therefore, the P1 model was used in this
study.
With a large optical thickness, the mean free path of
photons is very small compared to the mean beam length.
ð7Þ Consequently, the radiation intensity is only affected by the
radiation heat transfer in the near region and the integrated
intensity tends to be isotropic. The integrated intensity is
then the solution of a diffusion equation. In this study,
the ceramic foam was irradiated by concentrated solar
ð8Þ energy which was assumed to be a collimated incident radi-
ation beam. Thus, the P1 model was used with the intensity
splitting technique which uses collimated and diffuse inten-
sities (Modest, 2003). As a result, the integrated intensity
computed by the P1 method was the diffuse irradiation
Gs, i.e. the solar radiation that has undergone at least
one scattering and the emitted radiation. The transport
equation of the diffuse integrated intensity Gs is,
 
1  
r  rGs ¼ k 4rT 4s  Gs þ rs I 0
3ðk þ rs Þ
 exp½bz ð11Þ
The collimated irradiation was computed using
Gd = I0 exp[bz]. The total irradiation, G = Gs + Gd, was
then used to compute the radiative source term in Eq.
(9), r  qr ¼ k 4rT 4s  G .
3. Numerical model
i
3.1. Physical model
ð9Þ
The sectional shape of the absorber in a real volumetric
ð10Þ
solar air receiver can be a rectangle, a hexagon or other
shapes. Experimental studies have generally used absorber
samples that were cylinders. In numerical studies, the
absorber shapes can be easily changed. For comparison
with experimental data, one bulk of cylindrical shaped
ceramic foam was used in this study. The size of the foam
material, the physical model and the coordinate system are
shown in Fig. 2.
3.2. Effective conductivity
The thermal conductivity used in porous media is gener-
ally named as the effective thermal conductivity. The effec-
tive conductivity is generally second-rank tensor. Owe to
the lack of specific knowledge about the exact effective
conductivity and also for convenience, porous media mate-
rials are usually treated as isotropic media, and the effective
conductivity is calculated through correlations. The correla-
tion is generally a mixture of the conductivities of the clear
2378 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385

Fig. 2. Schematic of the physical model.

fluid or the dense solid. The Schuetz–Glicksman formula Thus the extinction coefficient can be computed as:
(Schuetz and Glicksman, 1984), which Kamiuto considered
3ð1  /Þ
the most accurate among the formula examined in b ¼ k þ rs ¼ ð17Þ
d
( Kamiuto, 2008), is used in this study to determine the
effective thermal conductivity (note: the default method of
calculating the effective conductivity in FLUENT is 3.4. Pressure drop correlation
keff ¼ /kf þð1  /Þks ). The formulas are:
keff ;f ¼ /kf ð12Þ In the momentum equation in Eq (2), the term F is the
pressure drop resulting from the porous media. For homog-
1 enous porous media, this term involves the two parameters,
keff ;s ¼ ð1  /Þks ð13Þ
3 the permeability coefficient, K1, and the inertial coefficient,
1 K2. Many researchers have developed models (Richardson
keff ¼ /kf þ ð1  /Þks ð14Þ
3 et al., 2000; Fourie and Du Plessis, 2002a,b; Macdonald
et al., 2002; Lacroix et al., 2007; Incera Garrido et al.,
3.3. Optical properties of ceramic foams 2008; Wu et al., 2009, 2010) to correlate the two parameters
with the characteristic length and the porosity. Wu et al’s
When the volumetric absorber is at high temperatures, (Wu et al., 2009, 2010) model, which was developed using
the heat transport by radiation plays a significant role numerical simulation on idealized tetrakaidecahedral struc-
[25]. In addition, the concentrated solar incoming flux is tures and validated by experimental data, was used in this
mainly absorbed by the ceramic foam with typical working study. The relationships to describe the two parameters
temperatures of volumetric solar air receivers ranging from are K1 = d2/(1039  1002/) and K2 = 0.5138/5.739/d.
300 to 1300 K, thus the radiative transport is important.
The porous media studied in this work was assumed to 3.5. Interfacial heat transfer coefficient
be a homogeneous participating media whereas the air is
transparent. The emission, absorption and scattering by The volume-averaged governing equations are conve-
the porous media were considered. The radiative properties nient for engineering applications using porous media. The
needed for the modeling of the radiative transport in a par- LTNE model is used here to account for the temperature dif-
ticipating media are the extinction coefficient, albedo and ference between the fluid and solid phases. One difficulty of
scattering phase function. Like the effective thermal con- using the LTNE model is to accurately calculate the interfa-
ductivity in porous media, the optical properties have been cial heat transfer between the fluid and solid phases. Younis
extensively studied (Hale and Bohn, 1993; Hsu and Howell, (Younis and Viskanta, 1993), Fu (Fu et al., 1998), Hwang
1992; Mital et al., 1996; Baillis et al.,1999, 2000; Baillis and (Hwang et al., 2002) and Fend (Fend et al., 2005) used the
Sacadura, 2000; Tseng and Kuo, 2002; Petrasch et al., 2007; single-blow method to measure the interfacial heat transfer
Loretz et al., 2008; Bellet et al., 2009). In this study, the coefficient. Numerical simulations based on idealized geom-
absorption coefficient and the scattering coefficient were etries, such as the cubic model (Ghosh, 2008), a square cylin-
computed by assuming that the geometrical optics approx- der field (Kuwahara et al., 2006) and solid square rods (Saito
imation holds (Vafai, 2005): and de Lemos, 2005; Saito and Lemos, 2006), and real geom-
etries from computer tomography (Petrasch et al., 2008),
ð1  /Þ
k ¼ 1:5a ð15Þ have been used to model the flow and heat transfer. Wu
d et al. (Wu et al., 2009, 2010) numerically investigated the
ð1  /Þ convective heat transfer characteristics of air flow through
rs ¼ 1:5ð2  aÞ ð16Þ
d ceramic foam, and argued that it is not appropriate to use
 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385
the “mean volumetric heat transfer coefficient”. They
instead proposed using the local volumetric heat transfer
coefficient given by,
Nulv ¼ ð32:504/0:38  109:94/1:38 þ 166:65/2:38
 86:98/3:38 ÞRe0:438 ð18Þ
This model is for the local volumetric heat transfer coef-
ficient in the fully developed flow region. In the entrance
region, the local volumetric heat transfer coefficient is
higher than the value predicted by Eq. (16). The entrance
length is a function of the geometry, permeability, porosity
and fluid viscosity. However, this length is generally only
1–2 times the mean cell size (Wu et al., 2009, 2010); thus,
the influence of the entrance length was neglected.
3.6. Boundary conditions
3.6.1. Concentrated solar radiation
The incoming concentrated solar radiative flux was trea-
ted as parallel, constant and uniform when conducting the
sensitivity studies. However, the concentrated solar radia-
tive flux is actually not parallel, variable and non-uniformly
distributed. The numerical results were compared with
experimental data assuming a steady, parallel solar radia-
tive flux with a Gaussian distribution. This Gaussian distri-
bution was fit based on the measured data on the 6 kW
furnace in PROMES (Odeillo), CNRS, France.
3.6.2. Wall boundary conditions
The walls were considered static, adiabatic, and diffuse
gray surfaces. For the P1 model, the wall boundary condi-
tion was a Marshak’s boundary condition with a wall emis-
sivity of unity (Ishimaru, 1999).
3.6.3. Inlet and outlet conditions
The inlet boundary (see Fig. 2) was defined to have a
given pressure (ranging from 200 to 2000 Pa above the ref-
erence pressure), and a static temperature of 300 K. The
outlet boundary was defined with a static pressure of
0 Pa. When comparing with the experimental data, the ref-
erence pressure was set to 84,500 Pa and to 101,325 Pa
otherwise because the altitude of the experimental site is
about 1800 m.
For the radiation, the radiation rays can penetrate into
the porous media, and the emission from the strut surface
inside the porous media can also go out. In addition,
because we split the concentrated solar irradiance into col-
limated and diffuse intensities, the conventional Marshak’s
boundary condition overestimates the radiation loss, and
thus is not suitable for this study. Therefore, the boundary
condition for the radiative losses (Eq. (7)) was expressed as,
 
qloss ¼ ee Sr T 4z  T 40 ð19Þ
Where ee is the apparent emissivity of the ceramic foam
(ee = 0.95, measured at ambient temperature), S the surface
area, r is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant, T0 is the ambient
2379
temperature (300 K), and Tz is the absorber’s front surface
temperature.
3.7. Numerical method
Although the physical model is a simple pipe, and cylin-
drical symmetric, a two dimensional mesh was generated
and used in this study, see Fig. 3. This two dimensional
conjugate heat transfer problem was solved using the
CFD software FLUENT 6.3. The Reynolds number based
on the mean cell size and the superficial velocity ranged
from 120 to 800 in the volumetric solar air receiver (Wu
et al., 2011). According to Kaviany (Kaviany, 1995), this
flow regime is usually turbulent and sometimes laminar.
Kuwahara et al. (Kuwahara et al., 1998) investigated the
microscopic turbulence fields in a fluid-saturated periodic
array using the low and high-Reynolds number versions
of the k  e models, and concluded that the differences in
the volume-averaged quantities predicted by both models
are insignificant. In addition, the k  e model is so far
the only turbulence model being used in the volume-
average methodology. Thus, the standard k  e model
(high Reynolds number) was used along with conventional
wall functions with the LTNE models in this study. The
model constants were as recommended by Launder and
Spalding, which are the default values in FLUENT.
The SIMPLE algorithm was used to couple the pressure
and the velocities with the second order upwind method
used for the advection terms in the momentum equations
and for the energy equation. For the LTNE model, the
additional scalar equations were solved through a user
defined function (UDF). Sources terms were computed
through the UDF to account for the pressure drop and
to couple the energy equations of the fluid phase and solid
phases. The convergence criterion was 105 for all the
equations.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Sensitivity studies
For optimizing the performances of the volumetric solar
air receiver, we conducted a series of sensitivity study of the
inlet velocity (by adjusting the inlet pressure), the porosity,
the mean cell size and the thermal conductivity. The sensi-
tivity studies are based on the LTNE model and with the P1
radiation model. The concentrated solar flux is a constant
incident flux of 600 kW/m2, and the air inlet temperature
of 300 K applies to all cases of this section.
Fig. 4 presents the temperature distribution of the fluid
and solid phase with same absorber properties
(d = 1.5 mm, / = 0.8), but under different inlet superficial
velocity. This figure shows that with the increasing of the
inlet velocity, the outlet temperature decreases and the
whole solid temperature becomes more uniform. In addi-
tion, the maximum temperature place locates always inside
the absorber.
2380 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385
Air in
Axis
Fig. 3. Mesh used in this study.
Fig. 4. Solid and fluid temperature distributions for various inlet velocities
(under the same geometrical properties of the material and solar
irradiance).
Fig. 5 presents the temperature distribution of the fluid
and solid phase under different porosity (d = 1.5 mm). A
fixed mass flow rate was defined as the inlet boundary
conditions. This figure shows that the porosity has a
remarkable influence on the front temperature of the
absorber. The maximum temperature difference on
the front temperature of the receiver is about 150 K when
the porosity varies from 0.7 to 0.9. The reason is that the
porosity has a considerable influence on the extinction
coefficient of foam materials. The extinction coefficient
decreases reversely with the porosity. Therefore, the con-
centrated solar irradiance can penetrate into the absorber
to a more depth when the porosity increases. In addition,
the porosity has a weak influence on the interfacial heat
transfer coefficient. As a result, the front temperature of
the absorber decreases reversely with the porosity. For
the same reason, the thickness of the thermal non-
equilibrium region increases slowly with the porosity.
Air out
Fig. 5. Solid and fluid temperature distributions for various material
porosity (under the same inlet mass flow rate and solar irradiance).
Fig. 6 presents the temperature distribution of the fluid
and solid phase with different mean cell size (/ = 0.8). A
fixed mass flow rate was defined as the inlet boundary con-
dition. This figure shows that the mean cell size has also a
remarkable influence on the front temperature of the
absorber. Like the influences of the porosity, the most
obvious difference is the front temperature of the receiver.
The temperature difference on the front temperature of the
receiver is about 50 K when the mean cell size varies from
1.0 mm to 3.0 mm. The reason is the extinction coefficient
decreases reversely with the mean cell size. Therefore, the
concentrated solar irradiance can penetrate into the absor-
ber to a more depth when the cell size increases.
To compare Figs. 5 and 6, we can see that the porosity
has a higher influence on the front temperature of the
absorber, whereas the cell size has a higher influence on
the thickness of the thermal non-equilibrium region. In
addition, the difference of the fluid temperature distribu-
tion is clearer in Fig. 6. This is because the cell size has a
 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385
Fig. 6. Solid and fluid temperature distributions for various mean cell
sizes (under the same inlet mass flow rate and solar irradiance).
higher influence on the interfacial heat transfer coefficient
than that of the porosity.
Fig. 7 presents the temperature distribution of the fluid
and solid phase with different thermal conductivity of the
solid phase, and under the same inlet mass flow rate and
solar irradiance. This figure shows that the influences on
the temperature field from the solid thermal conductivity
is very small when the air receiver works under steady state.
The maximum temperature difference is only 5 K when the
thermal conductivity varies from 40 to 100 W/(m K) (note:
this conductivity is not the effective conductivity, it is the
thermal conductivity of the pure solid). Consequently, we
can say that the solid thermal conductivity has small influ-
ence on the performances of a volumetric solar air receiver
when it works under steady states.
From these sensitivity studies, we can see that the influ-
ences from the velocity, porosity, mean cell size and conduc-
tivity on the temperature fields of the air receiver are very
complicated. At steady operating conditions, the influences
from the geometrical properties (mean cell size, porosity)
are predominant, and we can ignore the effects from the solid
Fig. 7. Solid and fluid temperature distributions for various solid thermal
conductivities (under the same inlet mass flow rate and solar irradiance).
2381
conductivity. Above all, it is possible to design a volumetric
solar air receiver with the ideal temperature distribution
described in (Fend et al., 2004) and called the “volumetric
effect”.
One feasible way to optimize the air receiver is to mini-
mize the thermal radiation losses by decreasing the absor-
ber’s front temperature. For example, when the receiver
works at 1000 K, a temperature difference of 100 K at the
absorber’s front surface means a difference of 5% of the
receiver’s thermal efficiency. However, the overall efficiency
is another thing. Fig. 8 presents the relationship between
the pressure drop of the receiver and the cell size, and
porosity. This figure shows that higher porosity is good
for the receiver, however, smaller cell size will cause higher
pressure drop.
From the above analysis, we can conclude that a type of
ceramic foam, with a mean cell size of about 1–2 mm and a
highest porosity, is the most favorable choice for the absor-
ber micro-structure. Of course, the final decision of the
absorber micro-structure is dependent on many factors,
such as the mechanical properties and the manufacture
techniques, instead of only the receiver’s efficiency.
4.2. Comparison with experiment
The above macroscopic model were compared using
experimental data from the literature (Wu, 2010), in which
a laboratory volumetric open solar air receiver was tested
on a solar furnace. The absorber material of this receiver
was ceramic foam and made of SiC. The experimental
setup used to study the absorber is shown in Fig. 9. In this
experiment, an infrared camera was used to measure the
absorber’s inlet surface temperature, two thermocouples
were used to measure the absorber’s inside temperature
(z = 25 mm, one locates at radius = 0 mm, the other
locates at radius = 12.5 mm), and two thermocouples were
used to measure the absorber’s outlet surface temperature
(z = 50 mm, one locates at radius = 0 mm, the other
locates at radius = 12.5 mm). One thing should be stressed
Fig. 8. Relationship between the pressure drop and mean cell size,
porosity (under the same inlet mass flow rate and solar irradiance).
2382 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385
Compressor
Flowmeter
valve
pressure
Support
structure
Infrared camera sample
Hot air emit to
environment directly
Sun
Fig. 9. Experimental system (Wu, 2010).
here is that a preliminary test was conducted, and the
results verified the thermocouple indications are corre-
sponding to the air temperature, and also the solid temper-
ature when the thermocouples were installed at any
locations of the sample only if z > 25 mm, because where
the fluid phase has reached local thermal equilibrium with
the solid phase.
Experimental data of one sample were selected to com-
pare with the macroscopic model developed in this study.
The absorber properties are: porosity 0.7, cell size
2.2 mm, diameter 50 mm and thickness 50 mm. The corre-
sponding operating conditions are: mass flow rate 3.36 g/s,
inlet air temperature 295 K, pressure drop 1760 Pa.
To compare with the experimental data, the boundary
conditions and the absorber properties of the numerical sim-
ulation were adjusted according to the operating conditions
in the experimental studies. The concentrated solar radiation
was assumed to be parallel beams with a Gaussian distribu-
2
tion Q ¼ DNI  5:4289e2:873ðr=0:0335Þ kW=m2 . Because of the
reflection, absorption and shadowing due to the quartz tube
and supporting structures (see Fig. 9), 37.8% of the radiation
is attenuated according to the calorimetric measurement.
Thus we assume that the solar flux on the sample
2
is Q ¼ DNI  ð1  0:378Þ  5:4289 e2:873ðr=0:0335Þ kW=m2 .
The experiments were transient because the solar irradiance
continuously varied, but the authors averaged the original
data over 2–5 min to get quasi-steady results. In this way,
the operating conditions of the volumetric solar receiver
Concentrator
Quartz
tube
insolator
PC
Data acquisition
5 thermocouples
Heliostat
can be analyzed as steady. And the experimental data are
comparable to the numerical results.
The comparison was made by comparing the measured
temperature with the numerical results. The locations were
selected at the front surface, and the center line of the
absorber. The temperature distribution in the solid phase
along a diameter line on the front surface is shown in
Fig. 10a with the temperature distribution in the solid
phase along the center line shown in Fig. 10b. We attribute
the discrepancy mainly to the measuring uncertainty of the
infrared camera, because we define the emissivity of the
absorber as unity during the test. Anyway, the computed
results agree well with the experimental data with errors
in the solid temperature of less than 10%. Thus, the numer-
ical simulation is very successful and the LTNE model
developed in this study is appropriate.
The predicted temperature distributions of the fluid and
solid phases are shown in Fig. 11. We can see that at the
outlet position, the fluid and solid phases have reached
local thermal equilibrium. This result agrees with the
experimental measurements which show that the signals
from the two thermocouples almost overlap each other
(Wu, 2010).
5. Conclusions and future work
The combined heat transfer in volumetric solar air
receivers was numerically simulated. The local thermal
 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385 2383

(a) 1800

1600
CFD
EXP
1400

Temperature (K) 1200

1000

800

600

400
-0.025 -0.0125 0 0.0125 0.025
Position (m)

(b) 1800

1600
CFD
EXP
Temperature (K)

1400

1200

1000

800
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Position (m)

Fig. 10. Measured and predicted temperatures of the solid phase (a) along a radial line on the front surface, and (b) alone the center line of the absorber.

non-equilibrium model was used with the P1 model to
investigate the temperature distributions. A sensitivity
study was conducted to study the effect of the inlet velocity,
porosity, mean cell size and thermal conductivity. The sim-
ulations were also compared with experimental data. The
results are summarized below:
(1) A generalized macroscopic model has been developed
for the modeling of ceramic foam used in the volu-
metric solar air receivers.
(2) The ideal temperature distribution with the maximum
solid temperature located inside the absorber is realiz-
able. This temperature distribution is dependent on the
working conditions and the material properties.
(3) The thermal conductivity of the solid phase of the
absorber material is not important to the performance
of the volumetric solar air receiver at steady state.
(4) The thermal non-equilibrium region in the absorber
is rather thin for ceramic foam with mean cell sizes
1–3 mm.
This macroscopic method and the developed macro-
scopic model in this paper are very helpful to the study
of the flow and heat transfer in porous media and the
design of volumetric solar air receivers. However, these
conclusions were drawn from steady state simulations
and the experimental data are not enough to fully validate
the proposed model. In addition, because the concentrated
solar radiative flux in the focal spot of the furnace is far lar-
ger than the solar radiative flux used in the section of sen-
sitivity studies, the sensitivity analysis leads to lower fluid
and solid temperatures than those observed in the experi-
mental study. In the future, more experimental and numer-
ical studies will be conducted to validate the macroscopic
2384 Z. Wu et al. / Solar Energy 85 (2011) 2374–2385

0.025 De Lemos, M.J.S., Saito, M.B., 2008b. Computation of turbulent heat

K
transfer in a moving porous bed using a macroscopic two-energy
equation model. International Communications in Heat and Mass
1596 0.0125 Transfer 35 (10), 1262–1266.
Fend, T., Pitz-Paal, R., et al., 2004. Two novel high-porosity materials as
1452 volumetric receivers for concentrated solar radiation. Solar Energy
0 Ts
Y

Materials and Solar Cells 84 (1–4), 291–304.

1308 Fend, T., Trimis, D., et al. (Eds.), 2005. Thermal Properties. Cellular
-0.0125 Ceramics: Structure, Manufacturing, Properties and Applications.
1164 Weinheim, WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
Flamant, G., Menigault, T., et al., 1988. Combined heat transfer in a
-0.025 semitransparent multilayer packed bed. Journal of Heat Transfer 110
1020 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
0.025 X (2), 463–467.
Fourie, J.G., Du Plessis, J.P., 2002a. Pressure drop modelling in cellular
876 metallic foams. Chemical Engineering Science 57 (14), 2781–2789.
0.0125 Fourie, J.G., Du Plessis, J.P., 2002b. Pressure drop modelling in cellular
732 metallic foams. Chemical Engineering Science 57 (14), 2781–2789.
Fu, X., Viskanta, R., et al., 1998. Measurement and correlation of
0
Y

Tf volumetric heat transfer coefficients of cellular ceramics. Experimental

588
444 0.0125
300
-0.025
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
X Hayes, A.M., Khan, J.A., et al., 2008. The thermal modeling of a matrix
Fig. 11. Predicted temperature distribution in the absorber under the solar
irradiation of a Gaussian distribution.
model within larger velocity and temperature ranges, and
the macroscopic model will be extended to the unsteady
state conditions.
Acknowledgment
This project was financially supported by the National
Basic Research Program of China (2010CB227106).
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