Hello Everyone,
I am looking for software that can simulate heat generated from solar radiation using reflectors. I am working on a project that works similar to solar tower technology. It would be great if any software that can measure the radiation and generated heat considering the number of reflectors, size, alignment, and time of the day. Any suggestion would be great I am quite lost right now. You can suggest me multiple softwares that can do all the works separately.
Thank You.
Conference Paper Ray-Tracing Software Comparison for Linear Focusing Solar Collectors
and SolTrace:
https://www.nrel.gov/csp/soltrace.html
Dear Mowaz:
There's OTSun, a python package for the optical analysis of solar-thermal collectors and photovoltaic cells with arbitrary geometry.
You could benefit from this valuable article about it:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240735.
Abstract:
Ray tracing software systems are commonly used to analyze the optics of solar energy devices, since they allow to predict the energy gains of devices in real conditions, and also to compare them with other systems constantly emerging in the market. However, the available open-source packages apply excessive simplifications to the model of light-matter interaction, making that the optical behaviour of the systems can not be properly characterized, which in turn implies disagreements between physical experiments and computer simulations. We present here the open source python package OTSun, which applies the Fresnel equations in their most general form, without further simplifications, and is suitable for the simulation of both solar-thermal and photovoltaic systems. The geometrical objects used in this package are created using the parametric 3D modeler FreeCAD, which is also a free and open source program and allows for the construction of arbitrary geometries that can be analyzed with OTSun. These, and other software capabilities, make OTSun extremely flexible and accurate for the optical analysis of solar devices with arbitrary geometry. Additionally, OTSun has a companion webtool, OTSunWebApp, that allows for the usage of certain features of the package without the need to install anything locally. We also show here two numerical experiments that we performed in order to validate the model and implementation: The analysis of the optical efficiency of a Linear Fresnel Reflector (with moving objects), and of a second surface mirror (with variable wavelengths). In each case, the numerical computations had deviations of less than 0.25% from reference models (either computed with another program or with exact formulas).
Data Availability:
The otsun package is available at:(https://github.com/bielcardona/OTSun). The scripts and auxiliary files used in the Model Validation section can be found at: (https://github.com/bielcardona/OTSunSuppMat).
The complete documentation of the API can be found at:(https://otsun.readthedocs.io). The web tool OTSunWebApp is available at (http://otsun.uib.es).
I hope it will be helpful...
Sir also you could benefit from this valuable article about your topic at:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2014/180618/.
I have attached the pdf file ....
Indeed there's A 100 MW parabolic trough solar thermal power plant with 6 h of thermal energy storage has been evaluated in terms of design and thermal performance, based on the System Advisor Model (SAM).
And this valuable article:
"Modeling and performance simulation of 100 MW PTC based solar thermal power plant in Udaipur India" at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214157X17301004
Abstract
Solar energy is a key renewable energy source and the most abundant energy source on the globe. Solar energy can be converted into electric energy by using two different processes: by means of photovoltaic (PV) conversion and the thermodynamic cycles. Concentrated solar power (CSP) is viewed as one of the most promising alternatives in the field of solar energy utilization. Lifetime and efficiency of PV system are very less compared to the CSP technology. A 100 MW parabolic trough solar thermal power plant with 6 h of thermal energy storage has been evaluated in terms of design and thermal performance, based on the System Advisor Model (SAM). A location receiving an annual DNI of 2248.17 kW h/m2 in Rajasthan is chosen for the technical feasibility of hypothetical CSP plant. The plant design consists of 194 solar collector loops with each loop comprising of 8 parabolic trough collectors. HITEC solar salt is chosen as an HTF due to its excellent thermodynamic properties. The designed plant can generate annual electricity of 285,288,352 kW h with the plant efficiency of 21%. The proposed design of PTC based solar thermal power plant and its performance analysis encourages further innovation and development of solar thermal power plants in India.
I hope it will be helpful...
With my best regards...
You may use COMSOL. See our paper and the procedure:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0038092X20308100
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