Effects of vertically ribbed surface roughness on the forced convective heat losses in central receiver systems

External receiver configurations are directly exposed to ambient wind. Therefore, a precise determination of the convective losses is a key factor in the prediction and evaluation of the efficiency of the solar absorbers. Based on several studies, the forced convective losses of external receivers are modeled using correlations for a roughened cylinder in a cross-flow of air. However at high wind velocities, the thermal efficiency measured during the Solar Two experiment was considerably lower than the efficiency predicted by these correlations. A detailed review of the available literature on the convective losses of external receivers has been made. Three CFD models of different level of detail have been developed to analyze the influence of the actual shape of the receiver and tower configuration, of the receiver shape and of the absorber panels on the forced convective heat transfer coefficients. The heat transfer coefficients deduced from the correlations have been compared to the results of the CFD simulations. In a final step the influence of both modeling approaches on the thermal efficiency of an external tubular receiver has been studied in a thermal FE model of the Solar Two receiver.