Parasitic driven heliostat mirror declinator
An automatic parasitically driven declinator is disclosed for changing the tilt angle of the mirror of a heliostat to provide solar declination tracking by the heliostat. The declinator includes an axial gear drive train coupled to the polar axial shaft of the heliostat, which shaft is rotated. A pendulum arrangement coupled via an input shaft to the axial gear drive train is substantially held in plumb position by gravity wherein the gear drive train is driven as it is rotated about the polar axis by the polar axial shaft. An output shaft coupled to the gear train is rotated to drive a skew bar linkage assembly that is connected to the mirror mounting assembly of the heliostat. The gear ratio of the gear drive train assembly is made 365:1 so that the mirror angle is annually nutated a predetermined number of degrees corresponding to the cyclic variations of solar declination.
- Assignee:
- EDB-84-027789
- Patent Number(s):
- US 4402582
- OSTI ID:
- 5449137
- Resource Relation:
- Patent File Date: Filed date 28 Jan 1982; Other Information: PAT-APPL-343598
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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