Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70

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Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Comprehensive study of wind supercharged solar chimney power plant T

combined with seawater desalination
⁎
Lu Zuo , Ling Ding, Jiajun Chen, Xiaotian Zhou, Bofeng Xu, Zihan Liu
College of Energy and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this study, a model of wind supercharged solar chimney power plant combined with seawater desalination
Solar chimney (WSSCPPCSD) was proposed. The integrated system was divided into wind pressure ventilator and solar chimney
Wind pressure ventilator power generation system for numerical simulation. Three-dimensional unsteady state numerical investigation on
H-type vertical axis wind wheel blade wind pressure ventilator was carried out as well as steady state numerical study on the solar chimney power
Seawater desalination
generation system. The flow field characteristics and performance parameters of the two subsystems were
Numerical simulation
analyzed. Subsequently, the comparison between solar chimney power plant (SCPP), solar chimney power plant
combined with seawater desalination (SCPPCSD) and WSSCPPCSD was conducted. The results show that, al-
though SCPPCSD can greatly improve the solar energy comprehensive utilization, the power generation is re-
duced. The wind pressure ventilator proposed in this paper could not only significantly increase the power
generation but also increase the freshwater production by providing a negative pressure of 64.5 Pa at the
chimney outlet. It was found that at 800 W/m2, an increase in power output of about 14.7 kW and increase in
hourly freshwater production of 30 g/h were obtained.

1. Introduction (2008a) did a numerical simulation of solar chimney power plant

Solar chimney technology is one of the feasible ways to achieve
large-scale utilization of solar energy, which integrates collector tech-
nology, chimney technology and wind turbine technology. The concept
of solar chimney on power generation technology was first described by
Spanish Artillery Colonel, Isidoro Cabanyes (1903)which was later
employed in the design and construction of the first practical solar
chimney power plant in Manzanares pioneered by Prof. Schlaich and
his colleagues (Robert 1981). This prototype plant of 50 kW operated
from 1982 to 1989 until being destroyed by a storm, which verified the
technical feasibility of solar chimney power plant (SCPP). The experi-
mental results of Spanish prototype were reported in Haaf (1984),
which also involved analysis of energy balance, collector efficiency,
pressure losses in the turbine section, along with the power generation
cost.
This attempt has greatly stimulated the research in this field. In
order to evaluate the impact of various factors on the performance o
f the solar chimney power plant, an ideal air standard cycle analysis
with the main losses and the collector model was carried out by Gannon
and von Backström (2000). Dai et al. (2003) proposed a simple model of
SCPP to analyze the influence of geometric sizes, environment condi-
tion and some relevant coefficients on the output power. Ming et al.
coupled with turbine, and studied the effect of turbine rotational speed
on system performance. Afterwards, the heat storage was included in
the simulation to analyze the system flow and heat transfer character-
istics, together with the heat storage performance under different ir-
radiance (Ming et al. 2008b). Effects of heat storage thermal properties
and soil compactness were analyzed by Hurtado et al. (2012) and
Bernardes (2013). The effect of external crosswind on system was stu-
died by Ming et al. (2012) through numerical simulation, and they
reported that, the crosswind could be positive for the system when its
velocity is above 15 m/s. This factor was also analyzed by Zhou et al.
(2012), and the variation of enlargement degree on inflow with the
chimney height and collector size was included. Considering the ra-
diation heat transfer in the collector, Guo et al. (2014) did a numerical
simulation which coupled with radiation, solar load and the fan model,
then in Guo et al. (2015), they replaced the previous fan model with a
real turbine model, and carried out a comparison between results of
these two methods. Recently, the effects of blade number, rotational
speed, collector diameter, and chimney height were reported in a nu-
merical study by Kasaeian et al. (2017).
In order to make it possible and economic for the commercial ap-
plication of large-scale Solar Chimney Power Plant, great efforts have
been devoted to finding a new design structure or to improving the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zuoluhhu@163.com (L. Zuo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2018.03.041
Received 17 September 2017; Received in revised form 13 March 2018; Accepted 14 March 2018
0038-092X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Zuo et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of WSSCPPCSD system structure.
efficiency with a constant even reduced chimney height. Papageorgiou
(2004) firstly proposed the concept of floating solar chimney tech-
nology, and it was proved to be more cost competitive compared with
other renewable technology by Papageorgiou (2007) and Zhou et al.
(2008). Bilgen and Rheault (2005) proposed the design of sloped solar
updraft power plant with the collector built on sloped surface or sui-
table hills, which is applicable for mountainous region. They reported
that the chimney height might be reduced by almost 90% and the
thermal performance is slightly improved. Li et al., 2012 proposed a
solar and wind energy extraction system, which combined a tornado-
type wind tower with SCPP. They found that, the pressure deficit
generated by tornado-type wind tower could greatly improve the power
generation capacity with the utilization of high-elevation wind energy,
which means that the height can be greatly reduced compared with the
same rated conventional SCPP.
In addition, limited by the relatively low overall efficiency of con-
ventional SCPP, the coupling of solar chimney technology and other
renewable technologies becomes a new competitive option, which can
improve the comprehensive utilization of solar energy and achieve
multiple objectives simultaneously. Wang et al. (2006) proposed an
integrated system for output of electricity and freshwater, the climbing
saturated moist air got condensed in the heat exchanger installed at the
chimney outlet, and then the freshwater was used to drive the hydraulic
turbine to obtain power output. Based on this structure, some im-
provements were made by Zhou et al. (2010), and then a comparison
between conventional SCPP and combined solar chimney system for
power generation and seawater desalination (CSCSPD) was conducted.
The research reported that the temperature, air velocity and power
generation in CSCSPD were both lower compared with conventional
SCPP. Zuo et al. (2011) proposed a new solar chimney power system
with integration of sea water desalination (SCPPCSD), in which closed
seawater desalination zone (disk solar distiller) was adopted to replace
the heat storage layer, then the mathematical model was developed and
benefit analysis was conducted. In addition, Zuo et al. (2012) built up
an experimental system to verify the feasibility of this integrated
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Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70
system, and the results showed that the solar energy utilization effi-
ciency was significantly improved in SCPPCSD. Niroomand and
Amidpour (2013) proposed a new combination of solar chimney and
Humidification-Dehumidification desalination process, and discussed
the effects of tube number, humidifier inlet water temperature and its
mass flow rate on the performance of this process, the results also re-
ported that with the increase of freshwater output, the power output
would decrease.
Obviously, the reduction in electricity generated by the coupled
system constitutes challenge to the commercialization of Solar Chimney
Power Plant. This is because the pressure difference in the integrated
system is affected as part of the energy gained at the collector was used
for desalination, thus leading to slight decrease in system average
temperature and consequently reduction in the pressure difference
between the system air and the ambient air. This results in reduction to
the power generation capacity of the coupled system in comparison to
the operation of conventional SCPP.
Considering the performance challenges associated with SCPPCSD,
a novel Wind Supercharged Solar Chimney Power Plant Combined with
Seawater Desalination (WSSCPPCSD) was proposed. The model has an
integration of supercharged wind pressure ventilator installed at the
chimney exit of SCPPCSD aimed at improving the performance. The
numerical study on the proposed system was divided into two compo-
nents to study the operations of the solar chimney power generation
system and the wind pressure ventilator. The study of the flow field
characteristics and performance parameters of the system involves
unsteady state numerical simulation of the wind pressure ventilator and
steady state numerical simulation of solar chimney power generation
system. Besides, a comparison between SCPP, SCPPCSD and WSSCPP-
CSD was conducted to analyze the effects of the coupling of wind
pressure ventilator.
L. Zuo et al.
Fig. 2. Energy flow through control volume of collector-desalination region.
2. Model description
2.1. Physical model
The basic model of WSSCPPCSD is shown in Fig. 1. Most of the solar
radiation penetrating the collector is absorbed by seawater layer and
the bottom tank. The rise in the temperature of seawater results in
evaporation, heat is transferred from seawater to the glass cover by
radiation and convection. The vapor gets condensed into water droplets
at the inner face of the glass cover, and then trickles along the glass
cover into the freshwater collecting trough under gravity. Glass cover
absorbs the long-wave radiation from seawater and the latent heat of
condensation of water vapor, which in turn heats the cold air flowing in
the collector. Then the temperature of air rises, the density decreases,
and a density difference with external environment is formed, thus
resulting in a pressure difference. The chimney, which acts as a nega-
tive pressure tube, increases the pressure difference between the system
air and the ambient air, and thus creates a strong updraft that drives the
turbine installed in the base of the chimney. The turbine consumes most
pressure potential and partial kinetic energy of the hot air, and the rest
are used to drive the hot air to the outlet of chimney.
The wind pressure ventilator is installed at the chimney exit to
utilize the high altitude wind energy, which adopts a modified H-type
vertical axis wind wheel structure. Specifically, several ventilator
blades are rigidly connected to the wind wheel blades and fixed on the
main shaft, and the main shaft is connected to the supporting plate
fixed on the chimney wall through bearings. When the wind drives H-
type vertical axis wind wheel to rotate, the ventilator blades will rotate
at the same angular speed. The negative pressure generated at the
bottom of rotating ventilator blades augments the system driving force,
the pressure potential absorbed by the turbine increases, inducing a
higher output shaft power. Besides, when the velocity of the working
fluid in the system increases, it leads to higher convective heat transfer
coefficient from glass cover to the buoyant airflow in a condition where
the cover temperature is higher than the air temperature, thus increases
the heat removal factor from the glass cover (Toure and Meukam,
1997). Due to the increasing temperature difference between seawater
and the glass cover, as the evaporation of seawater increases, more
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Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70
water vapor gets condensed into water droplets under the glass cover,
eventually a higher productivity of freshwater is achieved.
2.2. Design parameters
Considering the Manzanares solar chimney power plant prototype
adopted for this study, the cylindrical chimney is 194.6 m high with a
diameter of 10.16 m, the collector has a radius of 122 m and average
height of roof above the ground is 1.85 m (Haaf, 1983, 1984). The flow
passage adopts the design of bell-mouth shape (Fluri and Backström,
2008). The ambient temperature and solar radiation intensity con-
sidered in this investigation are 298.15 K and 800 W/m2, respectively,
and the external crosswind velocity at the top of the chimney is set as
15 m/s. In reference to the Glauert theory involved in blade aero-
dynamic design of horizontal axis wind turbine, the single-stage axial
wind turbine blades are designed and generated by BladeGen, and then
some optimizations have been done. The ventilator blades with CLARK
Y airfoil are designed in the manner of variable circulation (Wu, 2007).
NACA 0012 airfoil is selected for the H-type vertical axis wind wheel
blade, 4° of installation angle, 10 m of wind wheel diameter (D). To
ensure that the height to diameter ratio of the wind wheel is between
0.5 and 3, the height of the wind wheel is set to 15 m.
2.3. Mathematical model
The generalized governing equation of the whole system:
∂ (ρϕ)
+ ∇ ·(ρvϕ) = ∇ ·(Γϕ ∇ϕ) + Sϕ
∂t (1)
where ϕ is generalized dependent variable, can represent 1, v, T, k and ε
of continuity equation, N-S equation, energy equation, and k−ε equa-
tion, respectively; The universal diffusivity Γϕ , the universal source term
Sϕ and relevant coefficients are determined by the value of ϕ .
The momentum equation for rotation coordinate system:
∂ (ρ→vr )
+ ∇ ·(ρ→→
vr vr ) + ρ (2→
ω ×→
vr + →
ω ×→
ω ×→
r ) = −∇p + ∇ ·(μ∇→
vr )
∂t
⎯→
⎯
+ F (2)
L. Zuo et al. Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70

Table 1 structure, the model is divided into solar chimney power generation
Grid partitioning scheme. system and wind pressure ventilator system respectively. The solar
chimney power generation system is composed of collector, chimney
System Domain Type Grids Minimum
(×104) mesh quality and turbine region, and the wind pressure ventilator system is divided
into outer domain, inner domain and rotation domain of H-type vertical
Solar chimney power Collector Structured 310.1 0.5 axis wind wheel.
generation Turbine Unstructured 221.8 0.35
Hybrid structured/unstructured grid method is adopted. For turbine
system region
Chimney Structured 151.3 0.7 blades and ventilator blades, the chord length and installation angle
both vary greatly from blade root to blade tip. Consequently, although
Wind pressure Inner Structured 113.6 0.7
ventilator domain
the Jacobian matrix quality could reach 0.5 when adopting the struc-
Rotation Unstructured 286.8 0.3 tured grid, the grid quality is only 0.1 according to the skew angle,
domain leading to the final quality of grid is only about 0.1. Therefore, un-
Outer Structured 235.2 0.7 structured grids are generated in these two rotation domains, and
domain
structured grids are employed in other regions due to the symmetrical
structure. The grids of rotation domain and the fixed domain are con-
Shaft power from the turbine can be obtained by: nected by sliding mesh interface, and the mesh size ratio across the
interface is between 0.5 and 2 in order to minimize the discretization
Ptur = TΩ (3) error. Besides, tests with different meshing schemes for each subsystem
The turbine efficiency can be obtained by: have been conducted to investigate the grid independence. Finally, for
solar chimney power generation system and wind pressure ventilator
ρPtur
ηtur = × 100% system, the partitioning schemes with total grid number of 683, 2000
ṁ Δp (4) cells and 635, 6000 cells were adopt, respectively. The specific scheme
By analyzing the energy transfer mechanism, a mathematical model is shown in Table 1 and the grid divisions of two subsystems are shown
of airflow and heat transfer to the control volume (see Fig. 2) from a in Figs. 3 and 4.
radius, r, to incremental radius of r+Δr is established with reference to
the procedure developed by Pasumarthi and Sherif (1998). 3.2. Boundary conditions and numerical solution
The heat balance equation of collector roof:
qr,g −c + α c G = qr,c −s + qc,c −a + qc,c −m (5) To obtain the boundary temperature distributions, the heat balance
equations are discretized and solved by MATLAB according to the
The heat balance equation of the airflow in the collector: procedure shown in Fig. 5. After multiple iterations, a series of tem-
cp,m ṁ ∂Tm perature scatter points are obtained, and the least squares method is
qc,c −m + qc,g −m = − · used to fit these discrete points with tenth-order polynomials. Then the
2πr ∂r (6)
polynomials are programmed in the method of cell-centered dis-
For the SCPP, there are only the heat balance equations of collector cretization and imported as Fluent boundary conditions by compiled
roof, airflow in the collector and the heat storage layer, and the sub- UDF (User defined function).
script g of glass cover in the formula (5) and (6) should be changed to The numerical simulation solver is Fluent. For the simulations of
the subscript p of heat storage layer. solar chimney power generation system in SCPP, SCPPCSD and WSS-
The heat balance equation of SCPP heat storage layer: CPPCSD, pressure inlet and pressure outlet are used for system inlet and
α p τc τg G = qr,p −c + qc,p −m + qh,soil (7) outlet, and temperatures of the collector inlet and the chimney outlet
are considered to be equal to the environment temperature. The gauge
The heat balance equation of glass cover: pressures at the collector inlet and the chimney outlet are both set at
qe,w + qc,w −g + qr,w −g + αg τc G = qc,g −m + qr,g −c 0 Pa in SCPP and SCPPCSD, while in WSSCPPCSD, the supercharging
(8)
system is expected to provide a certain negative pressure at the chimney
The heat balance equation of seawater layer: outlet. The turbine region adopts the multiple reference frame (MRF)
α w τc τg G + qc,b −w = qe,w + qr,w −g + qc,w −g model (Ming et al., 2008a), interface of rotational domain and fixed
(9)
domain are set as Interface, and no-slip wall boundary conditions are
The heat balance equation of pond bottom plate: adopted for the rest. In this high-Rayleigh buoyancy-driven subsystem,
the air density is mainly affected by temperature, so the Boussinesq
αb τg τc (1−α w ) G = qc,b −w + qh,ss (10)
The hourly productivity of freshwater can be written as:
qe,w
Mw = × 3600
hw (11)
The utilization efficiency of solar energy of the integrated system
can be achieved by:
0.25π(D2coll −D2ch) qe,w + Ptur
ηsys = × 100%
0.25π(D2coll −D2ch) G (12)

3. Numerical processing method

3.1. Grid division and independence verification

ICEM CFD is used for three-dimensional geometric modeling and

Fig. 3. Meshing of solar chimney power generation system.
meshing during pre-processing. Considering the huge size of the whole

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L. Zuo et al. Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70

approximation is used to approximate the buoyancy forces, and the

thermal expansion coefficient takes a value of 0.00335. The standard
k−ε model coupled with the enhanced wall function is adopted to si-
mulate the flow in this part. SIMPLEC algorithm is applied for pressure-
velocity coupling, the PRESTO! discretization scheme is used for pres-
sure interpolation, and the QUICK discretization scheme is used for
other terms.
As for wind pressure ventilator system, the whole calculation do-
main is 4.5D × 2.5D × 2D (D is the wind wheel diameter). The hor-
izontal inlet is set as the speed-inlet boundary with a given speed of
15 m/s, the bottom of rotation domain is set as the pressure-inlet
boundary whose initial gauge pressure is 0 Pa, the horizontal outlet and
top outlet are considered as pressure-outlet boundaries, of which the
relative pressures are both 0 Pa. Frame motion and Mesh motion are
chosen for the rotation domain during the steady simulation and the
unsteady simulation of this subsystem, respectively. The bottom outer
domain adopts symmetry boundary conditions, the interface is set as
Interface condition, and no-slip-wall boundary conditions are adopted
for the rest. The RNG k−ε model with standard wall function is selected.
SIMPLE algorithm is applied for pressure-velocity coupling, the dis-
cretization scheme for terms of the governing equations are the same as
above.

4. Results and discussion

Fig. 4. Meshing of wind pressure ventilator system.
4.1. Validation of numerical simulation

The heat balance equations mentioned in 2.3 are discretized and

solved by MATLAB, and the boundary temperature distributions are
shown in Fig. 6. The temperatures of the SCPP collector roof and the
heat storage layer increase slowly from the inlet and drop sharply at the
collector outlet, the smooth increase can be explained by the small
airflow velocity in the collector except outlet area. When air flows
through the collector outlet, the contraction of the flow area results in a
higher velocity according to the mass flow conservation, and the con-
vective heat transfer coefficient also increases. Then more heat is taken
away by the hot air, leading to a sharp decrease in the temperatures of
the collector and the heat storage layer. For SCPPCSD, some of the heat
is absorbed by seawater, so the collector roof temperature is lower than
that in SCPP. In addition, the temperature difference between collector
roofs of SCPP and SCPPCSD is more obvious compared with the dif-
ference between SCPPCSD glass cover and SCPP heat storage layer. This
is because in SCPP, the heat absorbed by collector roof mainly comes
from the long-wave radiation of heat storage layer, which is sig-
nificantly reduced when using glass cover, resulting in a lower collector

Fig. 5. Flow chart of the solution procedure in Matlab.

Fig. 6. Boundary temperature distribution for SCPP and SCPPCSD.

63
L. Zuo et al.
roof temperature in SCPPCSD. However, considering the long-wave
radiation from seawater and latent heat of condensation absorbed by
glass cover, the temperature drop is relatively small.
According to Haaf (1984), with an insolation of 800 W/m2, when
the turbine rotational speed was 100 rpm, the maximum temperature
difference between the inlet and outlet of the collector was 17.5 K,
airflow velocity in the chimney was 9 m/s, turbine pressure drop was
120 Pa, pressure drop factor was 0.67 and output power was 36 kW. As
to the simulation of the basis SCPP in this paper, under the same op-
erating condition, the maximum temperature difference of the airflow
is 16.99 K, chimney outlet airflow velocity is 9.2 m/s, turbine pressure
drop is 116 Pa, pressure drop factor is 0.66 and output shaft power is
37.8 kW. The maximum tolerance of these mentioned parameters is 5%
through comparison between the simulation results and the experi-
mental results generated from the Manzanares pilot plant (Haaf, 1984),
so it is clear that good agreements are obtained, which proves the re-
liability of numerical simulation method proposed in this paper. The
slightly higher simulation output power can be attributed to the bell-
mouth shape flow passage design method adopted for transition sec-
tion, which results in a slight decrease in flow loss.
4.2. Simulation results of wind pressure ventilator
The flow in the wind pressure ventilator changes notably with time,
so an unsteady numerical simulation is essential for detailed study. As
the wind pressure ventilator proposed in this paper is a non-powered
device, the torque generated by H-type vertical axis wind wheel blades
is totally used to drive the ventilator blades, it is necessary to carry out
a steady simulation to determine the equilibrium condition before un-
steady simulation.
After repeatedly adjusting the rotational speed of the wind wheel,
the torque balance is obtained at the rotational speed of 69.3 rpm with
the torques of 3648 N·m and −3627 N·m for wind wheel blades and
ventilator blades, respectively, and the average pressure generated at
the bottom inlet of this subsystem is −64.5 Pa. Subsequently, based on
the results of the steady simulation, the unsteady simulation was car-
ried out. The rotation period is 0.866 s, so the time step is set as 0.001 s.
Time period that the flow field is stable is intercept, and the time step is
transformed into the change of azimuth angle of the blade for a more
intuitive analysis.
The velocity distribution in the cross section of wind pressure ven-
tilator at different azimuth angles is shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen that
the velocity gradient changes evidently before and after the wind wheel
and the flow velocity decreases gradually. A narrow and long wake
Fig. 7. Velocity distribution in the cross section of wind pressure ventilator.
64
Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70
region is formed from the rotating area of the wind wheel to the
downstream area, and the cycle of the wake flow is 72°. The velocity at
right downwind side of the wake region is smaller compared with that
at left downwind side. This is because at right downwind side of the
wind wheel, the direction of rotational velocity component is opposite
to the wind, so wind is blocked by the clockwise rotating wind wheel,
leading to an obvious decrease in velocity. As the wake flow moves
away from the wind wheel, the wake vortex falls off and the wake
velocity gradually approaches the ambient wind velocity. The reason
for this phenomenon is that there exists a velocity gradient between the
free flow and the wake, resulting in an additional shear turbulence,
which leads to the energy conversion and mixing between them. Finally
the velocity gradient is eventually eliminated as the diffusion of the
mixing area.
The pressure distribution at the bottom inlet of the rotation domain
is shown in Fig. 8. The pressure on the windward surface is larger and
there exists some positive pressure area, while the pressure on the
leeward surface is mainly negative. The airflow on the windward sur-
face is blocked by the wind wheel and gradually accumulates, which
results in positive pressure, however, the airflow on the leeward surface
is mainly influenced by ventilator blades, resulting in a wide range of
negative pressure area, especially under the ventilator blades. Com-
pared with the right downwind side of the wind wheel, the pressure
under the ventilator blades is larger on left downwind side, which even
equals the value of the surrounding airflow. The natural wind on left
downwind side of the wind wheel has the same direction with the
horizontal velocity component of rotating ventilator blades, so the re-
lative velocity between ventilator lower surface and airflow gradually
decreases, resulting in a higher pressure. As to the right downwind side,
the pressure under ventilator blades is relatively smaller inversely. In
the windward side of the H-type vertical axis wind wheel, the pressure
on the upper surface of the blade is larger, which pushes wind wheel to
rotate continually, however, for the leeward side, the pressure on the
lower surface is larger, which will prevent the rotation of wind wheel,
so the rotation of blades in leeward side are driven by blades in
windward side. The airflow near the blade leading edge is squeezed
during rotation, so the pressure here is relatively large. Although there
exits partial positive pressure area at the bottom inlet, the mean pres-
sure is still negative, and the negative pressure generated here can ef-
ficiently improve the performance of the solar chimney integrated
system.
L. Zuo et al.
Fig. 8. Pressure distribution at the bottom inlet of wind pressure ventilator.
4.3. Blade surface pressure distribution and torque variation in wind
pressure ventilator
As is shown in Fig. 9, there exist great differences in wind wheel
blade surface pressure distribution at different azimuth angles. When
the azimuth is between 90° and 270°, the pressure on the lower surface
of the blade is greater than the upper surface, which is exactly contrary
to the distribution between 300° and 60°. In general, the pressure dis-
tribution on the wind wheel blade varies periodically. The maximum
pressure difference between the upper and lower surface occurs near
the blade leading edge, where generates great lift. The pressure dif-
ference is almost zero at trailing edge, this is mainly caused by the small
trailing edge angle of the selected airfoil, resulting in an inconspicuous
pressure gradient.
Fig. 10 shows the variation of blade torque in wind pressure ven-
tilator with respect to azimuth angle. Specifically, the torque of a single
wind wheel blade changes periodically with azimuth angle, and the
maximum appears near the azimuth angle of 330° with a toque of
11,360 N m, which is corresponding with the result shown in Fig. 9 l
that the total pressure difference between the upper and lower surface
of the blade is maximum in 330°. It is actually the tremendous torque
generated by blade at azimuth angle of 330° that compensate for the
rather small or even negative torque of other blades to maintain the
rotation of the wind wheel. The minimum torque appears near the
azimuth angle of 150° with a value of −3634 N·m, which can also be
supported by the negative total pressure difference shown in Fig. 9f. It
should be noted that although the pressure difference at the blade
leading edge in Fig. 9i is largest among all azimuth angles, the absolute
value of total pressure difference is lower than that in Fig. 9f, which can
be attributed to the relatively smaller pressure difference from middle
to the trailing edge compared with Fig. 9f. Besides, the arm of the blade
lifting force for the rotation center at the azimuth angle of 150° is
greater than that of 240°, so the absolute value of blade torque is larger
near the azimuth angle of 150°.
65
Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70
The change period of H-type vertical axis wind wheel blades total
torque is 72°. In the first cycle, the maximum torque appears at the
azimuth angle of 40°, and the minimum appears at the azimuth angle of
3°. The total torque increases sharply at first and then has a significant
reduction with the increase of azimuth angle. The average total torque
is similar with the value under equilibrium condition in steady simu-
lation, which also validates the unsteady numerical simulation method
used in this paper. The total torque of the ventilator blades fluctuates
slightly around the results of steady simulation, and the change of the
single blade torque is small, so it is not illustrated.
4.4. Results of steady simulation in solar chimney power generation system
Fig. 11 shows the pressure distribution of system axial plane. It can
be seen that the internal pressure is symmetrically distributed about the
central axis of the chimney, and the pressure variation is smooth and
uniform. The relative pressure at the collector inlet is 0, and the var-
iation of the pressure through the collector is much small, so it can be
regarded as a constant-pressure endothermic process. At the transition
section, airflow is squeezed and the speed increases accordingly, which
can explain the notable decrease of pressure in this area. There is a
slight increase in pressure at turbine inlet due to the obstruction, after
getting across the turbine, the pressure drops drastically to a minimum,
and then slowly rebound until be same with the pressure at the chimney
outlet.
The characteristic of turbine area is analyzed according to the
pressure change due to its drastic variation trend, and several typical
streamlines have been selected. Fig. 12 shows the variation of pressure
on the streamline with respect to height in turbine area. At the inlet of
turbine area, the pressure increases slightly due to the resistance. After
getting across the blade, the flow is not only affected by pumping force
of the chimney but also the negative pressure surface of the rotating
blade, so the negative pressure decreases rapidly to a few hundred
Pascal, and it slowly picks up at the turbine outlet as the flow is only
L. Zuo et al. Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70

Fig. 9. Pressure distribution of H-type vertical axis wind wheel blade surface under different azimuth angles.

Fig. 10. The variation curves of blade torque with azimuth angle.

driven by pumping force of the chimney then. During the first rising
phase, pressure can reach hundreds of Pascal for minor blocked airflow
located near the positive pressure surface. As for the rest of airflow that Fig. 11. Pressure distribution of axial plane of solar chimney power generation system.
flows between adjacent blades, the pressure increases slightly as the
resistance is small, and the value is still negative.
Fig. 13 shows the velocity distribution of turbine inlet and outlet. It due to the relatively large obstruction of the blades, the velocity of the
can be seen that the airflow at the inlet and outlet of the turbine is airflow under the blade is smaller than the airflow around the blade. At
relatively uniform and there is no imbalance. At the inlet of the turbine, the outlet of the turbine, the static pressure drops sharply as the airflow
flowing through the turbine, and turns into dynamic pressure, so the

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L. Zuo et al. Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70

Fig. 12. The variation curves of pressure with height on the streamline.

velocity of airflow increases. The shock of the airflow on blades not

only drives the blade rotates but also equips itself with rotational speed
at the same time, so the airflow at the turbine outlet is a vortex flow. In
addition, there is a small part of airflow rushing directly through the tip
clearance instead of flowing across the blades.
Fig. 14 shows the pressure distribution of the positive and negative
pressure surfaces of the turbine blades. The pressure difference between
two surfaces drives the rotation of the blade, and the pressure variation
on the blade is gentle. As the leading edge is the part that first contacts
with the airflow when the blade rotates, the velocity gradient of the
airflow changes remarkably, leading to a maximum pressure difference
at the leading edge and it gradually decreases towards the trailing edge.
In addition, the pressure of blade tip is relatively small because part of
the airflow rushes directly through the tip clearance.
5. Comparison between SCPP, SCPPCSD and WSSCPPSCSD
Figs. 15 and 16 show the effect of different turbine rotational speeds
on maximum temperature difference, chimney outlet velocity, mass
flow rate and turbine pressure drop of SCPP, SCPPCSD and WSSCPP-
CSD. Specifically, the chimney outlet pressure of WSSCPPCSD takes the
results obtained in 4.2, −64.5 Pa. With the increase of the turbine ro-
tational speed, the system mass flow rate and chimney outlet velocity
Fig. 14. Pressure distribution of positive and negative pressure surfaces of the turbine
blade.
decrease, while the turbine pressure drop and the maximum tempera-
ture difference increase inversely. This is because the increase of the
turbine rotational speed will lead to a larger resistance, which reduces
the mass flow rate of the system and then the chimney outlet air ve-
locity decreases accordingly. The airflow is thus heated for a longer
time in the collector, leading to a higher airflow temperature at the
chimney inlet. According to the Boussinesq approximation, the density
difference between inside and outside the chimney increases, so the
system draft increases, and then the pressure drop across the turbine
increases. Besides, the variation trend of pressure drop becomes gentle
when the speed surpasses a certain value.
For certain rotational speed, that relevant parameters mentioned
above in SCPPCSD are smaller than SCPP system, this can be explained

Fig. 13. Air velocity distribution at turbine inlet and outlet.

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L. Zuo et al.
Fig. 15. The variation curves of maximum temperature difference and chimney outlet air
velocity.
Fig. 16. The variation curves of mass flow rate and turbine pressure drop.
by the lower maximum temperature difference of airflow as part of
solar radiation is absorbed for desalination. By comparing the curves of
SCPPCSD and WSSCPPCSD, the chimney outlet velocity, mass flow rate
and turbine pressure drop in WSSCPPCSD are both higher than
SCPPCSD except the maximum temperature difference. This is because
with the supplement of negative pressure generated by wind pressure
ventilator, the pressure difference is greatly enhanced, pressure drop
absorbed by turbine and the velocity therefore increase, resulting a
larger mass flow rate. Then, heating time during air flowing through the
collector is reduced due to the higher velocity, so the maximum tem-
perature difference is relatively smaller.
Fig. 17 shows the variations of shaft power and turbine efficiency
with rotational speed in SCPP, SCPPCSD and WSSCPPCSD. The peak
shaft power and efficiency both occur at the rotational speed of
100 rpm. Because of the additional freshwater output in SCPPCSD, the
shaft power is always lower than that of SCPP at the same rotational
speed, resulting in a 15% loss of electricity generation, which is con-
sistent with the results of Figs. 15 and 16. In addition, the shaft power
of WSSCPPCSD is 45% higher than SCPPCSD. The efficiency of
SCPPCSD is highest when turbine rotational speed is relatively low, but
lowest at high rotational speed contrarily. Under the same low rota-
tional speed, the heat flow power is small in both cases. Due to the slow
and smooth airflow in SCPPCSD, aerodynamic loss of this system is
much smaller, so its turbine efficiency is higher. On the contrary, when
it comes to a high rotational speed, the heat flow power is large, so the
proportion of aerodynamic loss is small, efficiency is mainly dominated
by shaft power, so the efficiency of WSSCPPCSD is highest then.
Fig. 18 shows the variation curve of WSSCPPCSD overall
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Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70
Fig. 17. The variation curves of turbine shaft power and efficiency.
Fig. 18. Variation curves of turbine shaft power and freshwater output with negative
pressure at chimney outlet.
performance with different negative pressure at chimney outlet. It can
be seen from Fig. 18 that the turbine shaft power increases almost
linearly with the increase of negative pressure. With a higher negative
pressure, the driving force increases, which leads to the increases in
turbine shaft power and mass flow rate, then the heat convection be-
tween airflow and glass cover is enhanced, the temperature of glass
cover consequently decreases. A larger temperature difference between
seawater and glass cover improves the evaporation of seawater and
eventually the hourly freshwater productivity. In fact, there is a limit to
the rate of seawater evaporation, which means that with the increase of
chimney outlet negative pressure, the hourly freshwater productivity
will finally reach a certain value.
More specifically, on the basis of simulation results of wind pressure
ventilator, if the chimney outlet pressure of SCPPCSD is −64.5 Pa, the
turbine shaft power can increase by 14.7 kW, and hourly freshwater
productivity can simultaneously increase by 30 g/h. The system com-
prehensive utilization of solar energy will rise by 30% and 70% com-
pared with SCPPCSD and SCPP respectively. Admittedly, the negative
pressure of the chimney outlet is lower than 64.5 Pa when the wind
pressure ventilator proposed is directly coupled with SCPPCSD, which
can be regarded as a SCPPCSD under the load condition of the wind
pressure ventilator, but this value can be reached by increasing the
height of the wind pressure ventilator. As the height increases, the
torque of H-type vertical axis wind wheel blades increases, leading to a
higher rational speed of ventilator, and the driving force is improved
consequently.
L. Zuo et al.
6. Conclusion
To offset the shortcoming of the SCPPCSD, this paper proposed a
new integrated system, wind supercharged solar chimney power plant
combined with seawater desalination (WSSCPPCSD). During the nu-
merical simulation, the WSSCPPCSD was divided into wind pressure
ventilator and solar chimney power generation system. Unsteady si-
mulation for wind pressure ventilator was carried out to study its flow
field characteristic, and the analysis on surface pressure and torque
variation of H-type wind wheel blade and ventilator blade were con-
ducted. Afterwards, steady simulations of solar chimney power gen-
eration system in SCPP, SCPPCSD and WSSCPPCSD were carried out,
the flow field of this subsystem in WSCPPCSD was analyzed, especially
the turbine region. Then the performance characteristics were obtained
through comparisons between the three. Finally, in order to explain the
superiority of the supercharger system more specifically, the influence
of chimney outlet negative pressure on the performance of WSSCPPCSD
was investigated. The main conclusions can be summarized as follows:
(1) The flow field of wind pressure ventilator is relatively complicated,
although there exists partial positive pressure at the bottom inlet,
the mean pressure is always negative. The blade torque of wind
pressure ventilator varies periodically. The torque of single H-type
vertical axis wind wheel blade fluctuates strongly with the change
of azimuth angle, most of the torque on the windward side is po-
sitive, and most is negative on the leeward side. The total torque of
H-type vertical axis wind wheel blades substantially increases at
first and then has a significant reduction in a cycle, and the total
torque of the ventilator blades is almost constant.
(2) For the solar chimney power generation system, the pressure is
symmetrically distributed with a smooth variation trend. The
pressure increases slightly through the collector, and then drops
sharply at the transition section. There exists a slight increase be-
fore the turbine, the minimum is reached after the airflow getting
across the turbine, and then slowly rebound until be same with the
pressure at the chimney outlet. The airflow at the inlet and outlet of
the turbine region is relatively uniform and there is no imbalance,
and there exists a vortex flow at the turbine outlet. In addition, the
pressure difference between turbine blade surfaces is largest at the
leading edge and gradually decreases towards the trailing edge.
(3) With the increase of the turbine rotational speed, the system mass
flow rate and the airflow velocity at chimney outlet decrease, the
maximum temperature difference and the turbine pressure drop
increase contrarily, and the increasing trends become gentle.
Besides, the turbine shaft power and efficiency have a peak at
certain speed. Although the SCPPCSD greatly improves the com-
prehensive utilization rate of solar energy compared with SCPP, the
generation capacity is reduced. At the rotational speed of 100 rpm,
the shaft power of WSSCPPCSD is 45% higher compared with
SCPPCSD. With the supplement of negative pressure generated at
the chimney outlet, the output power of the system increases line-
arly and the freshwater production increases accordingly.
Generally, the comprehensive utilization rate of solar energy is ef-
ficiently improved by the wind pressure ventilator.
Acknowledgements
This research is financially supported by National Key Research and
Development Program of China (No. 2016YFB0900103).
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Glossary
Symbol
cp : specific heat capacity, J/(kg·K−1)
D : diameter, m
F : mass force, m/s2
G : solar radiation intensity, W/m2
h : latent heat of unit area, J/(kg·m2)
k : kinetic energy of turbulent fluctuation, J
M : hourly freshwater productivity, kg/h
ṁ : mass flow, kg/s
P : power, W
p : pressure, Pa
q : heat transfer rate, W/m2
r : radius, m
T : temperature, K or torque, N·m
v : velocity, m/s
L. Zuo et al. Solar Energy 166 (2018) 59–70

Subscript sys: system

tur: wind turbine
w: seawater
a: environment or air
b: pond bottom plate
c: collector roof or heat convection Greek letter
ch: chimney
coll: collector α : absorptivity
e: evaporation ω : rotation angular velocity vector
g: glass cover η : efficiency
h: heat conduction μ : dynamic viscosity, Pa·s
m: hot airflow ρ : density, kg/m3
p: heat storage layer ϕ : universal variable
r: radiation ε : the turbulent dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy
s: sky τ : transmissivity
soil: soil Ω : turbine rotational speed, rad/s
ss: bottom and sides of distillation pond

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