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Go to Editorial ManagerIn the present research, a Matlab program with a graphical user interface (GUI) has been established for studying the performance of a solar tower power plant (STPP). The program gives the ability for predicting the performance of STPP for different tower dimensions, ambient operating conditions and locations. The program is based on the solution of a mathematical model derived from the heat and mass balance for the tower components. The GUI program inputs are; tower dimensions, solar radiation, ambient temperature, pressure, wind velocity, turbine efficiency, emissivity and absorptivity for collector and ground and thermal conductivity and thickness for ground. However, the GUI program outputs are; temperature and pressure differences across the collector and tower, velocity in the tower, density of air in collector outlet, mass flowrate of air, efficiency for collector and tower, the overall efficiency and output power of STPP. The effect of the geometrical dimensions of STPP and some climatic variables on the plant performance was also studied. The results show that the output power increases with increasing the collector diameter, chimney diameter and solar radiation by an increasing of 0.282 kW/m, 0.204 kW/m and 0.046 kW/(W/m2) respectively.
A mathematic model is presented for solar updraft tower power plant with water-storage system. This model is developed to evaluate the effect of geometrical parameters of the solar tower power plant and thermal storage system as well as the wind velocity on the power production of the plant. The analysis based on variable solar incident radiation along the day. The results show that the tower tall, the tower diameter, the wind velocity, and the collector diameter have a significant effect on the power production while lhe thickness of the water-storage layer is shifted the peak value of the output power far away from mid-day and more smoothing tha output power curve. The results are compared with other model and experimental data. A good agreement is obtained.