Numerical simulation study on the heat transfer of a spiral tube receiver designed to a thermal power tower

In this work the heat transfer of a spiral tube receiver exposed to concentrated solar radiation is studied theoretically. The simulations were performed using Fluent6.3.26 for two different sections at several Reynolds numbers: 100, 300, 500, 700, and 1000 to see the effect of the inlet velocity on the outlet temperature. The effect of the inlet temperature is also discussed by varying the inlet temperature of the water of 293K to 313K. The results show that the average temperature of the heating and adiabatic surface (inner wall) is decreasing when the velocity inlet is increasing. The outlet temperature of a semicircular section is higher than that of the circular section, but the Nusselt number of this one is twice higher as that of semicircular section and it´s due to the geometrical shape of the section.