SUMMARY

Particulate-based solar thermal energy storage (TES) and transport media provide a pathway for sensibly storing solar energy to produce on-demand electricity in concentrated solar power applications. The thermal radiative properties and light scattering of particles are important in understanding energy transfer processes in solar energy conversion by particulate media. Single particle scattering properties were measured by the unique taped particle method with a light scatterometer. Also, modeling granular flow is necessary for delivering mass transport information in heat transfer models to optimize solar particle receivers. Measured flow properties up to 800 °C were used as inputs to model granular flow of various configurations used in concentrated solar power (CSP) systems. Along with simulation, series of experiments including high temperature flow in a parallel plates configuration and inclined flow with external concentrated solar irradiation was performed. Simulated granular flow models were adopted to build a predictive heat transfer modeling for the high-temperature granular flow in parallel plate configuration.