Ustun, KadirKılıç, FatihYilmaz, Ibrahim Halil2025-01-062025-01-0620240927-02481879-339810.1016/j.solmat.2024.1130722-s2.0-85199937655https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2024.113072https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14669/2996This study presents an original method to optimally design the multi-layer stacks at varying layer counts, depths, and orders using 20 widely used candidate materials on copper (Cu) and stainless steel (SS) substrates. The water cycle algorithm (WCA) for the constrained design problem using genetic operators was adapted as an optimization algorithm. The study aims to design stacks for two different substrates, with high absorptivity (>0.95) in the solar spectrum and low emissivity (<0.1) in the infrared region for concentrating solar applications operating between 673 and 973 K. Two fitness functions, F-1 and F-2, are proposed and benchmarked at specified design conditions to analyze their efficacies. Results show that the increase in the coating efficiency (eta(c)) is less than 0.94 % in the case of adding more than 5 layers on the substrates. The difference between the coating efficiencies of the proposed stacks using SS and Cu substrates is less than 0.26 %. It is believed that the advanced optimization algorithm given in the paper will pave the way for more efficient solar selective absorber designs.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessSelective coatingCoating efficiencyStack designConcentrating solarOptimizationArticleQ1276WOS:001287494000001N/A