RT Journal Article T1 Non-conventional tube shapes for lifetime extend of solar external receivers A1 Rodríguez Sánchez, María de los Reyes A1 Laporte Azcué, Marta A1 Montoya, Andrés A1 Hernández Jiménez, Fernando AB In this work, several novel tube shapes of solar tubular receivers that differ from the classical circular shape are analysed aiming to reduce the stresses of the receiver tubes, without penalizing its thermal efficiency. The analysis is performed using analytical thermal and mechanical models of the literature adapted for their use with non-circular tube shapes, verifying the assumptions made with FEM simulations due to the lack of experimental data available.Among the geometries studied, the results show that oval cross-section tubes improve the thermal efficiency of the receiver at the expense of increasing the stresses considerably. Ovoidal tubes show worse thermal and mechanical behaviour when the frontal part becomes peakier. Semicircle tubes reduce the stress by 10.9%, while keeping constant or even slightly improving the thermal performance. The last ones, increase the lifetime of the receiver and reduces the receiver costs if the manufacturing of the new geometries does no overpass 3.5 times the present price of production of the circular tubes. Therefore, the use of asymmetric cross-section tubes with low rear-front surface ratios, and smooth front surfaces can be considered a good alternative for substituting traditional circular cross-section tubes in central receivers. PB Elsevier SN 0960-1481 YR 2022 FD 2022-03 LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/38485 UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/38485 LA eng NO This research is partially funded by the Spanish government under the project RTI2018-096664-B-C21 (MICINN/FEDER, UE) and by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid) under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of "Fostering Young Doctors Research" (RETOrenovable-CM-UC3M), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation). DS e-Archivo RD 18 jul. 2024