MUTHANNA JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (MJET)
THE EFFECT OF ENTRANCE REGION GEOMETRY ON SOLAR CHIMNEY POWER PLANT PERFORMANCE
Research Article:
Arkan Kh. Al-Taie
Machines and Equipment Engineering Department, University of Technology/Baghdad.
Ali Hayder Mutib
Machines and Equipment Engineering Department, University of Technology/Baghdad.
E-mail addresses: arkanaltaie@yahoo.com, ahmiceng1990@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
A numerical simulation to investigate the performance of solar chimney power plant is
presented. A small scale model of solar chimney power plant was modelled by using FLUENT
software. The solar chimney power plants consist of three essential elements, glass roof
collector, chimney (tower) and wind turbine. The output power of the system depends on the
input velocity to wind turbine. The turbine inlet velocity is a function of collector – chimney
junction type. To solve the governing equations of conservation of mass, momentum, energy,
Do- intensity, k and equations the finite volume method was adopted by FLUENT software
to model and analyze such system. The results showed that the geometry of entrance region
(collector-chimney junction type) has an effect on the performance parameters especially air
flow velocity. Using curved or rounded junction with deflector will improve system mass flow
rate by 37.65% as compared with straight junction.