Buoyancy Driven Solar Engine
Summary
Warm air rises. In any air-filled
configuration, open to the atmosphere, if part of the volume
is heated, warm air will rise drawing ambient air from
beneath to replace. If entry of air at the base of the
configuration is restricted by a
constriction/funnel/convergent nozzle, incoming air is
accelerated by the geometric constraint. It may thus be
possible to produce high air flow velocity using the
buoyancy of warm air.
In this paper it is suggested that warm air from a solar
absorber/collector flows via a warm air store into the
atmosphere. This provides a suction force drawing ambient
air from beneath into the absorber. Incoming air is
channelled through a convergent nozzle where the narrower is
the throat of the nozzle the higher is the air flow
velocity. Calculations suggest that at UK maximum summer
insolation an air flow velocity of 50 m/s can be achieved.
If solar energy can be converted efficiently into the
kinetic energy of air flow, this can be harnessed using an
air/wind turbine to produce electricity.
No experimental work has been carried out. The author
suggests a series of experiments that could validate the
approach and describes possible working models. It is the
author’s belief that the ‘buoyancy driven solar engine’
outlined will allow conversion of solar energy into
electricity with over 50% efficiency and that it is amenable
to large scale application.