Solar Vortex Engine

The solar chimney power plant, SCPP, has been proven to be a promising technology for solar power generation. However, the tall chimney has drawbacks in terms of construction and investment cost. Another technique of atmospheric vortex engine, AVE, was presented to generate electricity, which utilizes heat exchangers as a heat source. Nevertheless, thermal-hydrodynamic behavior of AVE has not been modeled or analyzed mathematically or experimentally yet. The developed solar vortex engine, SVE, has been proposed to eliminate the chimney unit in SCPP and the heat exchangers in AVE by a new design for vortex generation with utilizing the solar energy as thermal energy source. This book, therefore, provides a new technique for hot updraft, supplemental to spin the wind turbine and generate electricity. Three investigation techniques were carried out to evaluate the performance of the developed SVE by assessing thermal-hydrodynamic behavior. Mathematical modeling and numerical simulation are validated by experimental measurements. In conclusion, the SVE is feasible and promising for electrical power generation.