An experimental study on the thermal performance of a solar chimney with different dimensional parameters

For optimizing solar chimney power plant (SCPP) and also reaching to new experimental data, a pilot setup consisting of a chimney with 3 m height and 3 m collector diameter was constructed. Two main effective parameters including absorber material and geometric dimensions were analyzed using thermal and velocity data. In this paper, the main purpose is obtaining new experimental data in these new dimensions. The obtained data will be utilized in our future after studies for achieving a structural dimensional formulation of SCPPs. In fact, there is no comprehensive formula for achieving a precise relationship between the geometric parameters of the SCPPs. The dimension analyses show that the collector entrance distance of 6 cm has the best performance and the corresponding amounts of the chimney diameter and the chimney height are 10 cm and 3 m, respectively. Also, aluminum absorber has more heat transfer rate than iron one and the maximum fluid temperature difference between the collector and the ambient is 27 degrees C. The maximum air velocity of 1.7 m/s was recorded inside the chimney. In comparison to the chimney with 2 m height, this was about 55.3% higher. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.