Abstract
The heat transfer characteristics of solar tower receivers are experimentally investigated with receiver shapes. Generally, these become different according to the shapes and materials of the volumetric air receiver. In order to study these effects, the apparatus adopting laminated mesh and honeycombs as the volumetric air receiver is proposed. The receiver consists of laminated mesh (diameter; 100 mm, thickness; 1 mm), honeycombs (diameter; 100 mm, thickness; 30 mm) inserted into ceramic tube (inside diameter; 100 mm, outside diameter; 120 mm, length: 1000 mm). To apply heat to the receiver, an electric heater is used. To find out the heat transfer characteristics of the laminated mesh, the air temperatures are obtained by installing 3 thermocouples on each layer, dividing ceramic tube into 4 layers. Also, a radiative shield is installed to measure the only air temperature. The data for laminated mesh and honeycomb thickness of 30, 60, 90 mm are obtained. The results show that the temperature of layer 3 is higher than those of layer 2 and layer 1.