Design and validation of an air window for a molten salt solar thermal receiver

This thesis contributes to the development of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) receivers and focuses on the design of an efficient aperture. An air window is proposed for use as the aperture of a CSP molten salt receiver to mitigate efficiency losses due to heat and mass transfer. The current state of the art in CSP technology is outlined with emphasis on molten salt storage. An overview of the theory of air window devices is given, and a model is presented which can be used to predict the efficiency of the air window, given by the ratio of prevented heat and mass transfer to aperture power consumption. A design for an experimental test cell is presented, including a method of molten salt simulation and vapor concentration measurement. The test cell demonstrated the ability to lower the mass fraction of vapor outside the aperture by 77.8% ±6.2%. A high rate of cooling was observed in the test cell as the velocity of the air window was increased.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Paxson, Adam Taylor

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alexander H. Slocum.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59887

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/59887