Interests
Thermodynamics and radiation exergy; coupled heat-transfer problems; Monte-Carlo ray tracing; concentrating optics, stochastic optimisation and machine learning; high-temperature photonics
Research
Dr Asselineau’s research is dedicated to the study of the conversion of radiation into thermal energy and the interaction of radiation with geometrical structures. The key application in focus is the conversion of concentrated solar radiation into useful energy in Concenterated Solar Power (CSP) systems.
In CSP systems, solar radiation incident on a concentrating optics system is focalised on a receiver that converts it into heat at high-temperature. The resulting heat can be used in a variety of systems: a thermodynamic engine to produce electricity, a chemical reactor to run thermo-chemical processes (eg. solar fuels production), as industrial process heat (e.g. drying and cooking processes) or stored in a thermal energy storage system for later use (at night time or peak pricing hours on the electricity grid for example). Dr Asselineau’s objective is to improve the economical viability of CSP systems by improving the performance and lowering the cost of concentrating optics and receivers. This task requires the consideration of the whole chain of heat-transfer processes: the emission of thermal radiation by the sun towards the earth, the optical concentration process, the absorption of radiation on high-temperature absorber surfaces and the transport of the absorbed thermal energy outside of the receiver control volume.
- USASEC Project: Radiative heat-transfer simulations, SG3 dish optics and receiver simulation, receiver shape optimisation.
- ASTRI: P12 Receiver sub-project: geometrical optimisation of Flux Optimised Sodium Receiver (FONaR) concepts. P42 Solar Fuels sub-project: design and modeling of Solar Supercritical Water Gasification (SSWG) reactors for algae feedstock.
- SMILE: Heliostat field optics modelling and receiver design modification for a cogeneration system based in Caicara, Brasil for the company Solinova.
- ANU - Vast Solar: Heliostat characteristaion and heliostat field optics modeling for the company Vast Solar.
Biography
Dr Asselineau has worked at ANU since 2017, in the position of Research Officer and Research Fellow. He is also a MSCA IF Fellow, working on the HEASeRS project: High-tEmperature Angular-Selective Radiant Surfaces. Dr Asselineau has also worked as a Predoctoral Researcher at IMDEA Energy (Madrid, Spain), where he produced simulations and characterised the materials of a macro-encapsulated hight temperature latent heat thermal storage system, as well as in research positions at Areva Renewable (Paris, France) and CEA-Grenoble (Greneoble, France).
Dr Asselineau was awarded a PhD from ANU in 2017, with a thesis entitled Geometrical optimisation of receivers for concentrated solar thermal systems. In 2010, he completed an “ALEF” French-Chinese double degree program, majors in international energy project management and economics, and a Post-Master degree at Mines ParisTech (Paris, France). M.Sc. in Thermal Engineering at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China). He received a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at Ecole des Mines d’Albi-Carmaux (Albi, France) in 2009, and a B.Eng. in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at IUT Cachan (Paris, France) in 2006.
Activities & Awards
For more details of Dr Asselineau’s work, please see this link.