Analytical Approach Treating Three-Dimensional Geometrical Effects of Parabolic Trough Collectors: Preprint

Conference · Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012

OSTI ID:1039813

Binotti, Marco; Zhu, Guangdong; Gray, Allison; Manzollini, Giampaolo

An analytical approach, as an extension of one newly developed method -- First-principle OPTical Intercept Calculation (FirstOPTIC) -- is proposed to treat the geometrical impact of three-dimensional (3-D) effects on parabolic trough optical performance. The mathematical steps of this analytical approach are presented and implemented numerically as part of the suite of FirstOPTIC code. Inaddition, the new code has been carefully validated against ray-tracing simulation results and available numerical solutions. This new analytical approach to treating 3-D effects will facilitate further understanding and analysis of the optical performance of trough collectors as a function of incidence angle.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Solar Energy Technologies Program
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1039813
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-5500-54712; TRN: US201210%%49
• Resource Relation: Conference: Presented at the 2012 World Renewable Energy Forum, 13-17 May 2012, Denver, Colorado
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
INCIDENCE ANGLE
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PARABOLIC TROUGH COLLECTORS
PERFORMANCE
SIMULATION
firstoptic
CSP
parabolic trough
optical performance
trough collectors