Assessment of Ti3SiC2 MAX Phase as a Structural Material for High Temperature Receivers

Designing next generation concentrated solar power plant solar receivers with current metallic alloys is extremely challenging due to high creep damage accumulation under high temperature operating conditions. New structural materials with high creep resistance must be sought to achieve a desired design life of 30 years to recover the plant capital cost. MAX Phase materials are known to exhibit high creep resistance as well as high fracture toughness and therefore could be a viable option for high temperature receiver designs. This work assesses Ti3SiC2 MAX Phase as a potential candidate for high temperature receivers through evaluating the creep-rupture life of a reference molten salt receiver. Assessments are made for two different grain sizes - a fine-grained (3-5 mu m) and a coarse-grained (similar to 30 mu m) Ti3SiC2 MAX Phase. Results indicate a design life of several tens of years can be achieved for the reference receiver using Ti3SiC2 MAX Phase compared to less than a year design life using a high temperature nickel based alloy A740H.