An improved thermal analysis methodology for external receivers of solar tower systems

• An improved tmethodology forthe thermal analysis of a external thermal receiver is reported. • The governing equtions were solved using the concentrated solar flux distributions. • The computational model was validated with experimental results. This study presents an improved methodology for performing thermal analysis on finned solar receivers in Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) systems using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The use of the interpolation and mapping method is proposed, which involves imposing thermal images of solar flux as boundary conditions on the receiver surface and accounting for thermal losses due to natural convection, forced convection, radiation, and reflection. When comparing the numerical results with experimental data, differences of 0.4%, 0.6%, and 1.6% were found. The analysis of thermal losses revealed that the most significant losses were associated with reflection (6.9%) and forced convection (3.7%). The proposed numerical method represents a valuable strategy for the development of innovative solar receivers in central tower systems, adaptable to different geometries, scales, and operating conditions.