2.2 Methodology of heat transfer analysis of the reactor
The solar thermo-chemical reactor has been modelled and simulated using the finite volume
based CFD package ANSYS Fluent [4]. The geometry of the reactor has been created using CATIA. The
coupled phenomenon of fluid flow of gaseous mixture, multiphase particle physics of ZnO particles,
turbulence, radiation physics and chemical reaction for ZnO dissociation has been included in the model.
CFD analysis has been performed on a 3-D reactor domain consisting of cavity, sintered alumina and
insulation made of alumina fibers. The mesh of the solid part of reactor domain is assumed to be rotating
at 120 rpm in order to keep the ZnO particles along the wall by centrifugal action.