The hydraulic hammer effect in solar tower fluid circuit temperature controller * *Work supported by EC through STAGE-STE (FP7), Project number 609837. The work of J.M. Lemos and J.M. Igreja was also partly supported by FCT (Portugal) under project UID/CEC/50021/2013.

Abstract This article addresses the possible occurrence of hydraulic hammer effects in solar power towers and the limitations they impose on the response bandwidth of the control loop that governs the valve actuating on heating fluid flow. The partial differential equations that model the traveling waves associated to the hammer effect are solved with different methods. A finite dimensional approximation of the exact solution, by a transfer function with a finite number of poles is obtained. It is concluded that, for the speed of response of the temperature controller associated to the valve, there is no danger of inducing hydraulic hammer effects that can damage the equipment.