Experimental assessment of a solar vortex engine integrated with sensible TES at different collector configurations

This study presents an experimental investigation of the effect of different solar collector geometrical parameters on the solar vortex engine ' s (SVE) performance. The first parametric study is concerned with a solar vortex power generation system ' s diameter, inlet height, and thermal energy storage (TES) extension. The experimental results revealed that extending the TES by 1 m outside the canopy significantly increases thermal efficiency by 62 %. In addition, increasing the diameter of the solar collector from 8.8 m to 10.8 m, with an extra 1 m extended TES area, increased the air temperature rise by 57 %, while the outlet air velocity increased by 32 %. On the other hand, a reduction in the collector inlet height from 0.2 m to 0.15 increased the air temperature rise while decreasing the outlet air velocity and power output potential by mean values of 19 % and 48 %, respectively. The enhancement obtained from the extended area of TES is an important finding, as it increased the air temperature for a larger canopy size without extra cost. Therefore, increasing the absorption area or the TES outside the canopy is recommended. Also, further studies are essential to correlate the inlet height to the system ' s performance.