MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF A SALINITY GRADIENT SOLAR POND CONTAINING CARBON NANOTUBES WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF TURBIDITY

The mathematical model adopted in this work is based on the discretization of the conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy in 3 dimensions using the finite element method with appropriate initial and boundary conditions. In this numerical simulation work, we are interested in the testing of the influence of carbon nanotubes and in studying the effect of turbidity on solar ponds. The results show that an injection of the carbon nanotubes in a clear salt water solution in the storage zone clearly yields an improvement in thermal performance and generates a higher natural convection