Fabrication of heterogeneous microlenses using self-surface tension
Journal
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Journal Volume
9192
Date Issued
2014
Author(s)
Chiang, C.-H.
Abstract
Solar optical modeling tools are valuable for modeling and predicting the performance of solar technology systems. Four optical modeling tools were evaluated using the National Solar Thermal Test Facility heliostat field combined with flat plate receiver geometry as a benchmark. The four optical modeling tools evaluated were DELSOL, HELIOS, SolTrace, and Tonatiuh. All are available for free from their respective developers. DELSOL and HELIOS both use a convolution of the sunshape and optical errors for rapid calculation of the incident irradiance profiles on the receiver surfaces. SolTrace and Tonatiuh use ray-tracing methods to intersect the reflected solar rays with the receiver surfaces and construct irradiance profiles. We found the ray-tracing tools, although slower in computation speed, to be more flexible for modeling complex receiver geometries, whereas DELSOL and HELIOS were limited to standard receiver geometries such as flat plate, cylinder, and cavity receivers. We also list the strengths and deficiencies of the tools to show tool preference depending on the modeling and design needs. We provide an example of using SolTrace for modeling nonconventional receiver geometries. The goal is to transfer the irradiance profiles on the receiver surfaces calculated in an optical code to a computational fluid dynamics code such as ANSYS Fluent. This approach eliminates the need for using discrete ordinance or discrete radiation transfer models, which are computationally intensive, within the CFD code. The irradiance profiles on the receiver surfaces then allows for thermal and fluid analysis on the receiver. © 2014 SPIE.
Subjects
free form lenses; Heterogeneous microlenses
Other Subjects
Codes (symbols); Computational fluid dynamics; Design; Geometry; Incident solar radiation; Microlenses; Optical engineering; Optical instrument lenses; Ray tracing; Computation speed; Computational Fluid Dynamics codes; Discrete radiation; Freeform lens; Irradiance profiles; Optical modeling; Ray-tracing method; Solar technology; Lenses
Type
conference paper