Analysis of the solar thermal cylinder receiver heat flux distribution under multi-aiming point strategy

Generally, the heliostat field in the solar thermal power tower plant used the multi-aiming point strategy to reduce the non-uniformity of radiation heat flux on the receiver to prevent the overheating. In this paper, a single tube used in solar thermal power tower cylinder receiver was studied theoretically. The heat flux on the tube using the multi-aiming point strategy with multiple concentrated points was achieved by the Gaussian function with multiple maximum values. The thermal parameters characteristic were analyzed by numerical simulation. The results show that each aiming point has the optimal position making the lowest non-uniformity of the radiation heat flux on the tube when the number of the aiming point is constant. What's more, the radiation heat flux on the tube is more and more uniform and the maximum wall temperature decreases with the number on the aiming point increasing, while the maximum absolute temperature gradient increases. As a consequence, the thermal parameters must be considered comprehensively according to the multi-aiming point strategy to choose the optimal number of the aiming point and their optimal positions.