Mirror rearrangement optimization for uniform flux distribution on the cavity receiver of solar parabolic dish concentrator system

The nonuniform and high‐gradient solar radiation flux on the absorber surface of solar dish concentrator/cavity receiver (SDCR) system will affect its operational reliability and service lifetime. Therefore, homogenization of the flux distribution is critical and important. In this paper, 2 mirror rearrangement strategies and its optimization method by combining a novel ray tracing method and the genetic algorithm are proposed to optimize the parabolic dish concentrator (PDC) so as to realize the uniform flux distribution on the absorber surface inside the cavity receiver of SDCR system. The mirror rearrangement strategy includes a mirror rotation strategy and mirror translation strategy, which rotate and translate (along the focal axis) each mirror unit of the PDC to achieve multipoint aiming, respectively. Firstly, a correlation model between the focus spot radius and mirror rearrangement parameters is derived as constraint model to optimize the PDC. Secondly, a novel method named motion accumulation ray‐tracing method is proposed to reduce the optical simulation time. The optical model by motion accumulation ray‐tracing method and optimization model of SDCR system are established in detailed, and then, an optimization program by combining a ray‐tracing code and genetic algorithm code in C++ is developed and verified. Finally, 3 typical cavity receivers, namely, cylindrical, conical, and spherical, are taken as examples to fully verify the effectiveness of these proposed methods. The results show that the optimized PDC by mirror rearrangement strategies can not only greatly improve the flux uniformity (ie, reduce the nonuniformity factor) and reduce the peak local concentration ratio of the absorber surface but also obtain excellent optical efficiency and direct useful energy ratio. A better optimization results when the PDC is optimized by mirror rotation strategy at aperture radius of 7.0 m, focal length of 6.00 m, and ring number of 6; the nonuniform factor of the cylindrical, conical, and spherical cavity receivers is greatly reduced from 0.63, 0.67, and 0.45 to 0.18, 0.17, and 0.26, respectively; the peak local concentration ratio is reduced from 1140.00, 1399.00, and 633.30 to 709.10, 794.00, and 505.90, respectively; and the optical efficiency of SDCR system is as high as 92.01%, 92.13%, and 92.71%, respectively. These results also show that the dish concentrator with same focal length can match different cavity receivers by mirror rearrangement and it can obtain excellent flux uniformity.     

A solar dish concentrator based on ellipsoidal polyester membrane facets

The design of a solar parabolic dish concentrator is proposed based on an array of polyester mirror membrane facets that are clamped along their edges by elliptical rims and focused by applying a slight vacuum underneath the membranes, creating an ellipsoidal shape. The axes ratio of the elliptical rims varies with the position on the dish to approach the paraboloidal shape. The elastic mirror membrane deformation under uniform pressure load is simulated by finite element structural analysis and the resulting radiative flux distribution at the focal plane of the dish is determined by the Monte Carlo ray-tracing technique. Optimization of the membrane deflection is accomplished for maximum solar flux concentration at the focal plane. Two dish geometries are examined: (i) a 1.5-m radius 3-m focal length small dish, comprising 19 facets of 0.275-m radius with four different curvatures, yielding a peak solar concentration ratio of 5515 suns and a mean solar concentration ratio of 1435 suns with an intercept factor of 90% over a 3-cm radius disk target and (ii) a 10.9-m radius 11-m focal length large dish, comprising 121 facets of 0.9-m radius with 15 different curvatures, yielding a peak solar concentration ratio of 23,546 suns and mean solar concentration ratio of 8199 suns with an intercept factor of 90% over a 10.4-cm radius disk target. The performance of the second geometry is compared to that of the more conventional design of a multi-facet dish concentrator consisting of identical circular facets and shown to reach – on the same target area – a 12% higher mean solar concentration ratio as well as a 6.6% higher intercept factor. The simulated membrane shape is experimentally verified with photogrammetrical measurements carried out on a prototype facet of the small dish.     

超环面-CPC组合系统的太阳能聚集特性分析

结合光学软件比较分析了碟式抛物镜、菲涅尔反射镜、超环面聚光镜的聚集辐射性能,重点考察光线入射角度对光斑均匀性、聚光比等性能的影响。优化设计获得一种在聚光比、光斑均匀性、公差容忍度等性能方面都较优异的超环面-CPC组合系统,为太阳能聚集设备的创新设计提供了新思路。     

Testing an external sodium receiver up to heat fluxes of 2.5 MW/m: Results and conclusions from the IEA-SSPS high flux experiment conducted at the central receiver system of the Plataforma Solar de Almeria (Spain)

During the IEA-SSPS High Flux Experiment conducted at the sodium-cooled central receiver system of the Plataforma Solar de Almeria (Spain), an increase of the 1.4 MW/m² design heat flux to a maximum of 2.5 MW/m² was accomplished by focusing all available heliostats on the Advanced Sodium Receiver's central panel. Receiver efficiency was measured in various independent tests from 0.8 MW to 3.5 MW with sodium inlet and outlet temperatures being , , and °C. The incoming flux distribution was measured with a radiometer bar and the receiver surface temperature distribution was recorded with an infrared camera system. These data were used to verify two different thermodynamic models. Receiver efficiency did not drop when operating the receiver under high peak and power levels but was found to even rise slightly over its design value of 90%. The experiment showed that current design upper flux, power and temperature limits have not yet been reached and that there is a promising potential for increasing annual thermal output.     

Modeling of the Dish Receiver With the Effect of Inhomogeneous Radiation Flux Distribution

In this work, a new modeling coupling the inhomogeneous radiation flux distribution for the dish receiver is proposed and developed. The radiation transmission and absorbing process of the dish concentrating system is achieved by using the Monte Carlo ray tracing method (MCRT method), which reveals the high-order nonuniformity of the irradiance flux distribution on the inner wall of the dish receiver. The implementation of the three-dimensional numerical simulation coupling the heat loss of the dish receiver is by combining the microscopic MCRT method and the macroscopic SIMPLE method. In addition, a coupled photon statistic method is established to ensure the accuracy of heat flux distribution computation. The modeling result reveals that the temperature distributions of the inner receiver surface are significantly influenced by the inhomogeneous radiation flux. The temperature of the high local heat flux density area that lies in the middle part of the inner surface reaches 1374.8 K, which is even higher than the top area. In addition, the combined heat losses from natural convection and surface radiation are analyzed and compared respectively. It is found that the surface radiation heat loss is the predominant heat loss pattern of the combined heat transfer, and the natural convection loss is sensitive to solar intensity and the orientation of dish cavity receiver but changes little with the emissivity of the inner surface.     

Radiation performance of dish solar concentrator/cavity receiver systems

The Monte-Carlo ray-tracing method is applied and coupled with optical properties to predict radiation performance of dish solar concentrator/cavity receiver systems. The effects of sunshape and surface slope error have been studied and the corresponding probability models are introduced in this paper. Taking into account the above-mentioned factors, we show that the directional features of the focal flux affect the radiation flux distribution of cavity receiver, present criteria for the characterization of directional attributes, and describe a method for their calculation. Based on the concept of equivalent radiation flux, an upside-down pear cavity receiver is proposed in view of directional attributes of focal flux. Receiver design and modelling guidelines are presented. The uniformity performance of the wall flux is compared with five traditional geometries.     

Numerical simulation of the heat flux distribution in a solar cavity receiver

In the solar tower power plant, the receiver is one of the main components of efficient concentrating solar collector systems. In the design of the receiver, the heat flux distribution in the cavity should be considered first. In this study, a numerical simulation using the Monte Carlo Method has been conducted on the heat flux distribution in the cavity receiver, which consists of six lateral faces and floor and roof planes, with an aperture of 2.0 m×2.0 m on the front face. The mathematics and physical models of a single solar ray’s launching, reflection, and absorption were proposed. By tracing every solar ray, the distribution of heat flux density in the cavity receiver was obtained. The numerical results show that the solar flux distribution on the absorbing panels is similar to that of CESA-I’s. When the reradiation from walls was considered, the detailed heat flux distributions were issued, in which 49.10% of the total incident energy was absorbed by the central panels, 47.02% by the side panels, and 3.88% was overflowed from the aperture. Regarding the peak heat flux, the value of up to 1196.406 kW/m² was obtained in the center of absorbing panels. These results provide necessary data for the structure design of cavity receiver and the local thermal stress analysis for boiling and superheated panels.     

Prediction and optimization of the performance of parabolic solar dish concentrator with sphere receiver using analytical function

Parabolic solar dish concentrator with sphere receiver is less studied. We present an analytic function to calculate the intercept factor of the system with real sun brightness distribution and Gaussian distribution, the results indicate that the intercept factor is related to the rim angle of reflector and the ratio of receiver angle to the optical error when the optical error is larger than or equal to 5 mrad, but is related to the rim angle, receiver angle and optical error in less than 5 mrad optical error. Furthermore we propose a quick process to optimize the system to provide the maximum solar energy to net heat efficiency for different optical error under typical condition. The results indicate that the parabolic solar dish concentrator with sphere receiver has rather high solar energy to net heat efficiency which is 20% more than solar trough and tower system including higher cosine factor and lower heat loss of the receiver.     

新型太阳能聚焦器焦面能流分布仿真

考虑太阳光不平行度,应用蒙特卡洛光线跟踪法及光线的镜面反射定律,并采用数值模拟的方法分析了焦面位置误差、指向误差等对一种新型展开式太阳能聚焦器焦面光斑形状及能流分布的影响。结果表明:焦面位置误差绝对值越大,焦面光斑半径越大,焦面能流峰值越小;焦面误差绝对值相同时,焦面光斑形状及能流分布几乎一样;指向误差越大,光斑越偏离焦面中心,并且光斑由圆形逐渐演变成椭圆形,光斑长短径之比越大。结论可以为该新型空间太阳能聚焦吸热系统的设计提供参考依据。     

Numerical simulation and experiment research of radiation performance in a dish solar collector system

The Monte Carlo ray-tracing method is applied and coupled with optical properties to predict the radiation performance of solar concentrator/cavity receiver systems. Several different cavity geometries are compared on the radiation performance. A flux density distribution measurement system for dish parabolic concentrators is developed. The contours of the flux distribution for target placements at different distances from the dish vertex of a solar concentrator are taken by using an indirect method with a Lambert and a charge coupled device (CCD) camera. Further, the measured flux distributions are compared with a Monte Carlo-predicted distribution. The results can be a valuable reference for the design and assemblage of the solar collector system.     

Effects of geometrical parameters of a dish concentrator on the optical performance of a cavity receiver in a solar dish‐Stirling system

Dish‐Stirling concentrated solar power (DS‐CSP) system is a complex system for solar energy‐thermal‐electric conversion. The dish concentrator and cavity receiver are optical devices for collecting the solar energy in DS‐CSP system; to determine the geometric parameters of dish concentrator is one of the important steps for design and development of DS‐CSP system, because it directly affects the optical performance of the cavity receiver. In this paper, the effects of the geometric parameters of a dish concentrator including aperture radius, focal length, unfilled radius, and fan‐shaped unfilled angle on optical performance (ie, optical efficiency and flux distribution) of a cavity receiver were studied. Furthermore, the influence of the receiver‐window radius of the cavity receiver and solar direct normal irradiance is also investigated. The cavity receiver is a novel structure that is equipped with a reflecting cone at bottom of the cavity to increases the optical efficiency of the cavity receiver. Moreover, a 2‐dimensional ray‐tracking program is developed to simulate the sunlight transmission path in DS‐CSP system, for helping understanding the effects mechanism of above parameters on optical performance of the cavity receiver. The analysis indicates that the optical efficiency of the cavity receiver with and without the reflecting cone is 89.88% and 85.70%, respectively, and former significantly increased 4.18% for 38 kW XEM‐Dish system. The uniformity factor of the flux distribution on the absorber surface decreases with the decreases of the rim angle of the dish concentrator, but the optical efficiency of the cavity receiver increases with the decreases of the rim angle and the increase amplitude becomes smaller and smaller when the rim angle range from 30° to 75°, So the optical efficiency and uniformity factor are conflicting performance index. Moreover, the unfilled radius has small effect on the optical efficiency, while the fan‐shaped unfilled angle and direct normal irradiance both not affect the optical efficiency. In addition, reducing the receiver‐window radius can improve the optical efficiency, but the effect is limited. This work could provide reference for design and optimization of the dish concentrator and establishing the foundation for further research on optical‐to‐thermal energy conversion.     

Design,modeling, and optimization of a dual reflector parabolic trough concentration system

The aim of the present work is to enhance the thermal management avoiding the high-thermal stress on the outer surface of the parabolic trough receiver (PTR) derived from nonuniform concentrated solar flux distribution. A parabolic trough concentrating (PTC) system with second homogenizing reflector (HR) is numerically designed and optimized to ensure a uniform concentrated solar flux on the PTR walls. For this purpose, a three-dimensional optical model has been developed to analyze quantitatively the improvement made by the HR using the optical efficiency and qualitatively basing on the uniformity of the solar flux density distribution over the entire surface of the PTR. The validation of the numerical tool is presented, and the algorithm of the design process has been proposed and detailed. As a preliminary trait, it was revealed that the peak of the designed system performance is achieved with a rim angle of 68° avoiding simultaneously the aberration and the blocking effects. Despite the optical efficiency decrease by about 7% compared with the conventional PTC design, the uniformity of the solar flux distribution has been strongly improved such that the maximum local solar flux density gradient is decreased from 80 to 11 kW/m² equivalent to a decrease of 86.25% with respect to the conventional PTC and the average local density is about 25.5 kW/m².     

Experimental characterization of anode heating by electron emission from a multi-walled carbon nanotube

The steady-state temperature distribution in a thin anode bombarded by an electron beam field emitted from an individual multi-walled carbon nanotube is measured with an infrared camera, and this distribution is compared to that predicted by a numerical model. By assuming the electron distribution in the beam follows a Gaussian distribution, a good fit to the anode temperature profile is obtained and this fit provides an estimate of the beam spreading radius. Results indicate the electron beam narrows as the emission current increases. A heat flux on the anode surface as high as 0.35 W/cm² has been measured, corresponding to an electron beam radius of approximately 1.22 mm.     

Experimental performance investigation of modified cavity receiver with fuzzy focal solar dish concentrator

In this paper, thermal performance analysis of 20 m² prototype fuzzy focal solar dish collector is presented. The focal image characteristics of the solar dish are determined to propose the suitable design of absorber/receiver. First, theoretical thermal performance analysis of the fuzzy focal solar parabolic dish concentrator with modified cavity receiver is carried out for different operating conditions. Based on the theoretical performance analysis, the total heat loss (conduction, convection and radiation heat losses) from the modified cavity receiver is estimated. It is observed that the maximum theoretical efficiencies of solar dish collector are found to be as 79.2% for no wind conditions and 78.2% and 77.8% for side-on and head-on winds speed of 5 m/s respectively. Latter, real time analysis of parabolic dish collector with modified cavity receiver is carried out in terms of stagnation test, time constant test and daily performance test. From stagnation test, the overall heat loss coefficient is found to be 356 W/m² K. The time constant test is carried out to determine the influence of sudden change in solar radiation at steady state conditions. The daily performance tests are conducted for different flow rates. It is found that the efficiency of the collector increases with the increase of volume flow rates. The average thermal efficiencies of the parabolic dish collector for the volume flow rate of 100 L/h and 250 L/h are found to be 69% and 74% for the average beam radiation (I_bn) of 532 W/m² and 641 W/m² respectively.     

Numerical simulation of the heat flux distribution in a solar cavity receiver

In the solar tower power plant, the receiver is one of the main components of efficient concentrating solar collector systems. In the design of the receiver, the heat flux distribution in the cavity should be considered first. In this study, a numerical simulation using the Monte Carlo Method has been conducted on the heat flux distribution in the cavity receiver, which consists of six lateral faces and floor and roof planes, with an aperture of 2.0 m×2.0 m on the front face. The mathematics and physical models of a single solar ray’s launching, reflection, and absorption were proposed. By tracing every solar ray, the distribution of heat flux density in the cavity receiver was obtained. The numerical results show that the solar flux distribution on the absorbing panels is similar to that of CESA-I’s. When the reradiation from walls was considered, the detailed heat flux distributions were issued, in which 49.10% of the total incident energy was absorbed by the central panels, 47.02% by the side panels, and 3.88% was overflowed from the aperture. Regarding the peak heat flux, the value of up to 1196.406 kW/m² was obtained in the center of absorbing panels. These results provide necessary data for the structure design of cavity receiver and the local thermal stress analysis for boiling and superheated panels.     

Optical performance of spherical reflecting elements for use with paraboloidal dish concentrators

While paraboloidal dishes have traditionally been used for high flux/high power solar concentration devices, the manufacture of multi-facet collectors has been complicated somewhat by the need to produce reflecting elements having different curvatures for different regions of the paraboloidal surface. This complication could be minimised by using identical spherical reflector sub-components mounted with a paraboloidal orientation on a space frame dish structure. This paper compares the optical performance and manufacturing feasibility of collectors having such a combination of surfaces.     

Solar flux distribution study in heat pipe cavity receiver integrated with biomass gasifier

Technological advances have taken place in the field of solar receivers, gasifiers, and heat pipes, however, the integration of these technologies is not significantly available. In this paper, the conceptual design of a novel biomass gasifier is presented. The system facilitates the solar capture and gasification process separately. It is fitted with a heat pipe arrangement to transfer heat from the solar receiver zone to the gasifier zone. Collection of heat pipes comprised of few straight tubes and few innovative semi-‘S’ shaped tubes. Solar receiver geometry is modified to semi-cylindrical shape and the evaporator section of heat pipes is arranged circumferentially inside the solar receiver. The conventional gasifier is modified with an arrangement to distribute uniform solar heat throughout the fixed bed of biomass feedstock. This paper aims to present the optical analysis of the proposed heat pipe embedded solar receiver. Heat pipe disposition inside the cavity, receiver positioning on focal planes and slope error are varied to perform optical performance of the proposed solar reactor. Average solar flux is found to increase up to 1.1-fold to 1.7-fold placing cavity receiver below focal height by 16 and 32 mm respectively. Also, the magnitude and flux profiles incident on surfaces are affected with concentrator slope error. Average flux reduces up to 21.7% with 4 mrad as compared to 2 mrad error.     

Development of a low-cost dish solar concentrator and its application in zeolite desorption

This paper deals with the development and performance characteristics of a low-cost dish solar concentrator and its application in zeolite desorption. The dish solar concentrator consists of an old damaged satellite dish, purchased from a scrap yard, and a polymer mirror film used as reflecting surface. The proposed concentrator is connected to a sun-tracking system which is based on an electronic circuit that processes the input signals from a set of sensors and drives the dish actuator. The solar thermal energy application to adsorption technology (with the sorption pair water/zeolite) is simulated using the ‘Ice-Quick’ device manufactured by Zeo-Tech GmbH. Samples from two types of zeolites were initially brought to saturation condition and then mounted on the focal point of the dish solar concentrator in order to be regenerated. Experimental results are presented and useful conclusions are drawn.     

洪水过程对垂向潜流交换作用的影响

选取洪峰和涨洪历时两个参数,利用COMSOL模拟研究了单峰洪水一个周期内河床表面压力分布变化条件下,在河道潜流区地表水与地下水进行潜流交换时,潜流交换量随时间的分布特点、示踪粒子在河床中滞留时间的变化规律以及潜流交换在潜流带深度方向的变化规律。结果表明,在单峰洪水一个周期内,涨洪历时的大小对潜流交换量和交换深度影响并不显著,但随着涨洪历时的增长,粒子滞留时间会随之增大;洪峰大小与潜流交换总量、交换深度均呈线性关系,即洪峰越大,潜流交换量越大,潜流交换深度也越大;随着洪峰的增大,粒子滞留时间也会随之增大。     

太阳能模拟器聚光特性实验研究

太阳能模拟器为高温吸热器、热化学反应器、高温材料等测试提供了稳定可靠、调节灵活的全天候辐射条件。本文介绍了一种高辐射能流的太阳能模拟器，包含19个独立的单元。每个单元包括一盏短弧氙灯（包含椭球面反射灯罩），一台冷却风机和一台电源控制器。每盏灯的输入电流范围是50 ~ 150 A，19盏灯的灵活组合使得该设备具有非常宽泛的能流使用范围（10% ~ 100%）。实验通过“Mapping Method”得到了聚焦平面上的能流分布、峰值能流、总功率和转换效率等参数。测试结果表明：该太阳能模拟器的总功率达到了28.95 kW_th，峰值能流为2.33 MW/m²，平均辐射能流为545.54 kW/m²（直径为260 mm焦斑面），电–热转换效率为35%。本文介绍的太阳能模拟器为太阳能高温器件的测试提供了稳定可靠的室内模拟辐射源，为相关实验部件的性能评估提供了一种新的便捷途径。