PIV and CFD analysis to study the effect of solar reactor design on turbulence formation.

Direct solar thermal decomposition of methane yields emission free generation of hydrogen and carbon. In spite of its energy and environment-wise attractiveness, this process has technological challenges for industrial scale production due to carbon deposition initiating reactor clogging and blocking the sunlight entry into the reactor due to carbon deposition on reactor window. Carbon particle deposition can be reduced by proper reactor design where flow inside would sweep the carbon particles away by forming particular flow pattern via turbulence. This project focuses on an experimental (by means of PIV)and numerical study (by RANS analysis) of turbulence formation inside a solar reactor to create a specific flow pattern which would reduce carbon deposition and help in designing the optimal reactor geometry.

Keywords:Computational Fluid Dynamics, Particle Image Velocimetry, fluid mechanics, solar reactor design

Disciplines:Thermodynamics, Applied mathematics in specific fields, Classical physics, Physics of gases, plasmas and electric discharges