Absorber Alignment Measurement Tool for Solar Parabolic Trough Collectors: Preprint

Conference · Sun Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1115/ES2012-91283· OSTI ID:1040923

Stynes, J. Kathleen; Ihas, Benjamin

As we pursue efforts to lower the capital and installation costs of parabolic trough solar collectors, it is essential to maintain high optical performance. While there are many optical tools available to measure the reflector slope errors of parabolic trough solar collectors, there are few tools to measure the absorber alignment. A new method is presented here to measure the absorber alignmentin two dimensions to within 0.5 cm. The absorber alignment is measured using a digital camera and four photogrammetric targets. Physical contact with the receiver absorber or glass is not necessary. The alignment of the absorber is measured along its full length so that sagging of the absorber can be quantified with this technique. The resulting absorber alignment measurement provides criticalinformation required to accurately determine the intercept factor of a collector.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1040923
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-5500-54214
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
ALIGNMENT
CAMERAS
CAPITAL
CSP
DIMENSIONS
FUEL CELLS
GLASS
PARABOLIC TROUGH COLLECTORS
PERFORMANCE
SOLAR COLLECTORS
TARGETS
absorber alignment
concentrating solar power
parabolic trough
trough collector