Professor's research featured in DOE publication
Professor Christine Hrenya’s research on concentrating solar power plants has been featured in the August edition of ASCRDiscovery, a U.S. Department of Energy publication that describes scientific advances made through computing.
The article, “Tower of power,” describes efforts in Hrenya’s lab to use supercomputing to identify a better heat transfer medium for the plants, which can generate enough electricity to power roughly 18,000 homes. The plants use mirrors to reflect the sun's rays onto a tower containing a heat-transfer medium, which then produces steam to turn a turbine generator.
Using the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, the team develops computer models to track how sand-like particles would move and transfer heat in a power tower, and whether that medium might overcome problems that currently prevent a CSP plant from operating at maximum efficiency.