THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Zuzanna Kaczor

,

Zbigniew Bulinski

,

Sebastian Werle

NUMERICAL STUDIES ON CAPABILITY TO FOCUS SOLAR RADIATION WITH MIRRORS OF DIFFERENT CURVATURES

ABSTRACT
The article presents the methodology and results of a parametric analysis performed to investigate the effects of changes in the curvature of the solar concentrator mirror on its ability to focus the radiation. Working conditions of the concentrator, i. e. possible values of radiation intensity, were adopted according to irradiance typical for Poland, and, therefore, similar to the conditions in many European countries. The curvatures of examined mirrors were obtained by modification of a parabolic curve. The calculations were conducted for two cases: when the Sun radiation falls completely directly and when it's half diffuse. The 2-D simulations were conducted in ANSYS FLUENT 18.2 software. Discrete ordinates model was employed to simulate radiation phenomenon. Also, a sensitivity analysis was carried on discrete ordinates model parameters and density of the computational mesh. The results allow stating that some of the new curvatures provide only slightly worse focus than the classical parabolic shape, but also show greater insensitivity to the increasing share of diffusive part of radiation. The presented model is a quick and proven tool for testing new curvatures of solar concentrator mirrors.
KEYWORDS
solar, concentrator, mirror, curvature, radiation, CFD, parametric analysis, collector
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2018-12-18
PAPER REVISED: 2019-02-20
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2019-02-26
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2019-09-22
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI19S4153K
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2019, VOLUME 23, ISSUE Supplement 4, PAGES [S1153 - S1162]
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Numerical studies on capability to focus solar radiation with mirrors of different curvatures

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence