Abstract: On account of one-target focus type of the heliostats in the tower solar power technology, the heat flux in the cavity receiver is non-uniform in time and space, which may lead to the panels burst or ablation due to the local over-heat in some extreme situation. In this work, an electrical heated evaporating experimental loop, including five parallel vertical tubes, is set up to evaluate the hydrodynamic characteristics of evaporation panels in a solar cavity receiver under various non-uniform heat fluxes. The influence of the heat flux concentration ratio, total flow rate, and system pressure on the flow distribution of parallel tubes is discussed. The hydrodynamic characteristics of working fluid in the heated surface of cavity receiver are obtained by performing experiments. This work offers information for development of large-capacity, high-efficiency, and large-scale cavity receivers.

Key words: solar cavity receiver, flow distribution, wall temperature, experimental study, evaporation panel