An improved model for natural convection heat loss from modified cavity receiver of solar dish concentrator

A 2-D model has been proposed to investigate the approximate estimation of the natural convection heat loss from modified cavity receiver of without insulation (WOI) and with insulation (WI) at the bottom of the aperture plane in our previous article. In this paper, a 3-D numerical model is presented to investigate the accurate estimation of natural convection heat loss from modified cavity receiver (WOI) of fuzzy focal solar dish concentrator. A comparison of 2-D and 3-D natural convection heat loss from a modified cavity receiver is carried out. A parametric study is carried out to develop separate Nusselt number correlations for 2-D and 3-D geometries of modified cavity receiver for estimation of convective heat loss from the receiver. The results show that the 2-D and 3-D are comparable only at higher angle of inclinations (60 degrees <= beta <= 90 degrees ) of the receiver. The present 3-D numerical model is compared with other well known cavity receiver models. The 3-D model can be used for accurate estimation of heat losses from solar dish collector, when compared with other well known models. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.