Structure optimization and research for thermodynamic properties of a new plate heat pipe receiver used in solar tower power plant

This paper proposed a new finned plate heat pipe receiver used in solar tower power (STP) plant, which consists of a flat plate heat pipe side and finned channel. By using the orthogonal design method combined with the finite element analyses, the structure of flat plate heat pipe was optimized. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of plate-fin channel was established to analyze the impact of different types of fins and their structure parameters on thermal performance. The results showed that, 16 bars with outer diameter of 10 mm and inner diameter of 5 mm are the optimal parameters with the thermal stress of 10.02 MPa (800 ℃). Serrated fin can improve the performance for developing plate heat pipe receiver.