Study on the Influence of Windproof Cylinder on the Performance of Solar Vortex Power-desalination Integrated System

Environmental crosswinds have a negative impact on the stability of the cyclone column of the solar vortex power-desalination integrated system. The setting of windproof cylinder is one of the measures to deal with its impact. In this paper, the flow field characteristics of the system are analyzed on the basis of the established three-dimensional numerical simulation. The effects of crosswinds in the vortex area and windproof cylinder height on the system performance are studied. The research shows the existence of windproof cylinder delays the direct contact between the hot air flow and the outside air, thus raising the temperature of the vortex center. At the same windproof cylinder height, the freshwater production of the system slightly increases when the crosswind speed increases from 0 m/s to 1 m/s. But as the incoming wind speed continues to increase, the system performance deteriorates. As the windproof cylinder height increases, the maximum negative pressure at the vortex center, the mass flow rate at the heat collector entrance and the hourly freshwater production continue to increase. But too high a windproof cylinder will weaken the rotating wind field, aggravate the negative effect of the windproof cylinder shadow and increase the construction cost. Considering the technical economy, the reasonable height of the windproof cylinder in this example is 20-30 m.