evaluation of solar-chimney power plants with multi-pleangle collectors

Solar chimney power plants are solar thermal power based plants, including three parts of collector, chimney, and turbine, which are able to produce electrical energy. one of the effective parameters in increasing the power production is the collector angles versus horizon. in the present study, a numerical analysis of a solar chimney power plant for different angles of the collector (divergent, convergent and horizontal type collector) is proposed. the introduced numerical model uses mathematical models of heat transfer. in this regard,the effect of various angles of the three considered collectors on temperature distribution and power production of the solar chimney is evaluated. divergent type collectors produce more power than convergent and horizontal collectors, as they produce more velocity and mass flow rates. it is shown that increasing the angle of a divergent-type collector (keeping the inlet height constant) increases the power production and decreases the output temperature. the angle variation of 0.8 to 1 increases the divergent type collector output power by 11 % and decreases the output temperature by 0.78%. in the other case, when the output height is kept constant and the collector angle changes, the performance of the divergent type collector is better than the other two collectors. power production in a constant mean height is shown to be 3 times and 1.5 times more than the convergent and horizontal collectors, respectively.