Investigation of Geometrical Parameters and Hydrophobic Surfaces on the Performance of Solar Chimney Power Plant

The aim of this study is the modeling of the solar chimney for achieving the relation between turbine output power and geometrical parameters. In this regards, 9 different models are determined based on the variety of chimney height and diameter for investigating the effects of geometrical parameters on the turbine performance. As well as, in order to improvement of system performance, the hydrophobic surfaces were evaluated with consideration of friction reduction by verification of slip condition on walls. The k-ε turbulent model was used to modeling turbulence flow and reverse-fan model was employed for simulating the turbine. For this purpose, the extracted data from the mass flow rate and velocity changes were validated with prior studies and then were compared in different pressure jumps in order to better comprehension of the performance of the turbine. The optimization was done through the defined models and it was observed that to have a better and optimized design, the geometrical parameters should have been considered in the system design simultaneously. Meanwhile, the chimney diameter should have been paid more attention as one of the most important design parameters. Also, the precise correlation was represented to estimate the turbine output power with respect to the height and diameter of the chimney. Furthermore, based on the applying of slip condition on walls for simulating hydrophobic surfaces, shear stresses reduction was done and it was revealed that the hydrophobic surfaces could have a positive effect on the performance of SCPP up to 5 percent.