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Title: Diverging polygon-based modeling (DPBM) of concentrated solar flux distributions

Journal Article · · Solar Energy
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  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
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This paper presents an efficient and robust methodology for modeling concentrated solar flux distributions. Compared to ray tracing methods, which provide high accuracy but can be computationally intensive, this approach makes a number of simplifying assumptions in order to reduce complexity by modeling incident and reflected flux as a series of simple geometric diverging polygons, then applying shading and blocking effects. A reduction in processing time (as compared to ray tracing) allows for evaluating and visualizing numerous combinations of engineering and operational variables (easily exceeding 106 unique iterations) to ascertain instantaneous, transient, and annual system performance. The method is demonstrated on a linear Fresnel reflector array and a number of variable iteration examples presented. While some precision is sacrificed for computational speed, flux distributions were compared to ray tracing (SolTrace) and average concentration ratio generally found to agree within ~3%. Furthermore, this method presents a quick and very flexible coarse adjust method for concentrated solar power (CSP) field design, and can be used to both rapidly gain an understanding of system performance as well as to narrow variable constraint windows for follow-on high accuracy system optimization.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
Grant/Contract Number:
AR0000471
OSTI ID:
1558400
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1245227
Journal Information:
Solar Energy, Vol. 122, Issue C; ISSN 0038-092X
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 1 work
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (15)

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Codes for solar flux calculation dedicated to central receiver system applications: A comparative review journal March 2008
A user's manual for DELSOL3: A computer code for calculating the optical performance and optimal system design for solar thermal central receiver plants report November 1986
An analytic evaluation of the flux density due to sunlight reflected from a flat mirror having a polygonal boundary journal January 1978
Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector solar thermal powerplants journal March 2000
Methodology for generation of heliostat field layout in central receiver systems based on yearly normalized energy surfaces journal July 2006
General Ray-Tracing Procedure† journal January 1962
Concentrating Solar Power: Best Practices Handbook for the Collection and Use of Solar Resource Data (CSP) report September 2010

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14 SOLAR ENERGY
Solar thermal energy
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