Improving Uniformity of Temperature Distribution in Heating Medium of a Solar-Particle Receiver

In 2012, a beam-down solar concentrator was installed at the University of Miyazaki, Japan. The solar-particle receiver included in this system was developed in the laboratory. Experiments were conducted using the beam-down solar concentrator with a compound parabolic concentrator and this solar-particle receiver. The results revealed that the maximum temperature achieved was 1570 °C. However, the temperature in the heating medium was not uniform, and a large temperature difference developed between the center and the outside of the internal cylinder. Herein, the design of the solar-particle receiver was improved to increase the heat-storage efficiency by improving the uniformity of the temperature distribution in the internal cylinder. Tests conducted with the improved solar-particle receiver showed that heat-storage efficiency increased from 17.0% to 34.9%.