Design and CFD analysis of an industrial fan for a concentrating high-temperature solar powerplant

The increasing request for the use of renewable energy sources leads to the study of different types of new alternative powerplants, one of them being the electricity generation by means of solar concentration powerplants with open volumetric receiver, using non-pressurized air as the heat transfer fluid. Due to the poor heat transfer characteristics of the fluid, a large air mass flowrate is needed in the solar tower to transfer a sufficient amount of heat to a conventional steam cycle. The aim of this study is to design a machine with 5 MW electrical power output and 1.125 compression ratio that is able to work in this severe environment. The compression needed by the forced convection circuit, requires verification of the relevance of the compressibility phenomena. The design start from the machine type selection and the sizing of the compressor, based on the standard mono-dimensional turbomachinery theory, and continue with the verification of the fluid dynamic performance of the fan, based on a commercial CFD code (ANSYS-FLUENT). A first 2D case is evaluated to ensure that the geometry is working correctly, then the full 3D geometry is simulated to quantify the real performance of the compressor. A preliminary structural analysis of the blade is also performed to verify the structural integrity of the chosen configuration.