2024

Thermal Conversion of Solar Radiation in the medium and high Temperature range: Technologies and Applications

Name: Thermal Conversion of Solar Radiation in the medium and high Temperature range: Technologies and Applications
Code: EME13171D
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area: Renewable Energy Engineering

Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese, English
Regime de Frequência: Presencial

Sustainable Development Goals

Learning Goals

The student shall enhance his(her) knowledge on line-focus and point-focus solar concentrators suitable for thermal applications, namelly in what regards its design parameters and optical and thermal characterization parameters.
The student shall deepen his(her) competencies on the assessment of the use of solar concentrating systems in different medium and high temperature applications, such as, e.g.: desalination, power production, solar cooling, biomass gasification – as well as their combinations in CHP systems.
By the end of this course the student shall be able to quantify and assess the thermal yield of different solar fields under specific climate and operation conditions, as well as to dimension solar fields suitable to different thermal applications in the range of medium and/or high temperatures, assessing component specific and overall system performance.

Contents

1 – The impact of concentration ratio in the temperature of solar radiation thermal conversion
2 – Line-focus concentrating systems: definition and design parameters
3 – Point-focus concentrating systems: definition and design parameters
4 – Optical assessment of concentrating systems: optical effects; incidence angle modifier; optical efficiency. Experimental and ray-trace based assessment.
5 – Thermal assessment of concentrating systems: evacuated and non-evacuated systems. Thermal performance assessment methodologies.
6 – Solar field models for different concentrating technologies
7 – Medium temperature thermal applications: characterization and definition of modeling parameters
8 - High temperature thermal applications: characterization and definition of modeling parameters
9 – System modelling for diferent applications: definition of components and system; operation modes; assessment parameters; calculation algorithm.

Teaching Methods

The teaching will be based on theory and pratice classes and in tutorial classes. The idea is to stimulate the student to search the different topics explained in the course and the full comprehension of the concentrators shown during the course
Final grade: final report describing the application of the concepts learned for a practical concentrator design

Teaching Staff