Dynamic thermal analysis and creep-fatigue lifetime assessment of solar tower external receivers

This paper proposes a methodology for the dynamic thermal analysis of solar tower external receivers and for the assessment of their lifetime. A dynamic thermal model is implemented in Modelica to assess the temperature distributions of receiver tubes and heat transfer fluid (HTF), considering real weather data with a 10-minute time resolution and PI controllers based mass flow rate control. Three representative days are simulated, and the resulting tubes temperature distributions are used to assess the elastic stresses distributions during the investigated days. Subsequently, the creep-fatigue lifetime of each receiver panel is evaluated accounting for material plasticity and creep-induced stress relaxation. The developed methodology is applied to compare three materials for solar receivers: Inconel 740H, Haynes 230, and Incoloy 800H. Results show that fatigue can be negligible with respect to creep for all investigated materials and the shortest lifetime is obtained for 800H, followed by H230, and 740H. The approximation of a receiver operation for 365 clear-sky days per year leads to errors around 30 % on the lifetime. For 740H and 800H, the damage accumulation during cloudy days with high DNI peaks is greater than during clear-sky days due to the remarkable creep damage originated during temperature spikes which follow clouds passages. H230 instead, accumulates more creep damage during clear-sky operation. This emphasizes the potential of the developed methodology to compare different HTF mass flow rate control strategies as well as receiver geometries and materials, HTFs, and heliostats aiming strategies, accounting for the trade-off between energy yield and receiver lifetime.