Abstract

A solar chimney power plant consists of a large greenhouse-type collector surrounding a tall chimney. The air, heated within the collector, passes through an inlet guide vane (IGV) cascade and then through a transition section to a turbine that powers a generator. The transition section contains the turbine inlet guide vanes that support the whole chimney and guides the flow entering the turbine. There is a surge in the use of the solar chimney power plant in the recent years which accomplishes the task of converting solar energy into kinetic energy. The existing models are sufficient to accurately describe the mechanism and evaluate the performance of a solar chimney power plant system, in which the effects of various parameters on the relative static pressure, driving force, power output and efficiency. This paper aims at development of mathematical model for obtaining the temperature lapse rate that takes in the solar chimney.