scholarly journals Optical Performance Modeling and Analysis of a Tensile Ganged Heliostat Concept

Author(s):  
Julius Yellowhair ◽  
Charles E. Andraka ◽  
Kenneth M. Armijo ◽  
Jesus D. Ortega ◽  
Jim Clair

Abstract Designs of conventional heliostats have been varied to reduce cost, improve optical performance or both. In one case, reflective mirror area on heliostats has been increased with the goal of reducing the number of pedestals and drives and consequently reducing the cost on those components. The larger reflective areas, however, increase torques due to larger mirror weights and wind loads. Higher cost heavy-duty motors and drives must be used, which negatively impact any economic gains. To improve on optical performance, the opposite may be true where the mirror reflective areas are reduced for better control of the heliostat pointing and tracking. For smaller heliostats, gravity and wind loads are reduced, but many more heliostats must be added to provide sufficient solar flux to the receiver. For conventional heliostats, there seems to be no clear cost advantage of one heliostat design over other designs. The advantage of ganged heliostats is the pedestal and tracking motors are shared between multiple heliostats, thus can significantly reduce the cost on those components. In this paper, a new concept of cable-suspended tensile ganged heliostats is introduced, preliminary analysis is performed for optical performance and incorporated into a 10 MW conceptual power tower plant where it was compared to the performance of a baseline plant with a conventional radially staggered heliostat field. The baseline plant uses conventional heliostats and the layout optimized in System Advisor Model (SAM) tool. The ganged heliostats are suspended on two guide cables. The cables are attached to rotations arms which are anchored to end posts. The layout was optimized offline and then transferred to SAM for performance evaluation. In the initial modeling of the tensile ganged heliostats for a 10 MW power tower plant, equal heliostat spacing along the guide cables was assumed, which as suspected leads to high shading and blocking losses. The goal was then to optimize the heliostat spacing such that annual shading and blocking losses are minimized. After adjusting the spacing on tensile ganged heliostats for minimal blocking losses, the annual block/shading efficiency was greater than 90% and annual optical efficiency of the field became comparable to the conventional field at slightly above 60%.

2009 ◽  
Vol 132 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Göttsche ◽  
Bernhard Hoffschmidt ◽  
Stefan Schmitz ◽  
Markus Sauerborn ◽  
Reiner Buck ◽  
...  

The cost of solar tower power plants is dominated by the heliostat field making up roughly 50% of investment costs. Classical heliostat design is dominated by mirrors brought into position by steel structures and drives that guarantee high accuracies under wind loads and thermal stress situations. A large fraction of costs is caused by the stiffness requirements of the steel structure, typically resulting in ∼20 kg/m2 steel per mirror area. The typical cost figure of heliostats (figure mentioned by Solucar at Solar Paces Conference, Seville, 2006) is currently in the area of 150 €/m2 caused by the increasing price of the necessary raw materials. An interesting option to reduce costs lies in a heliostat design where all moving parts are protected from wind loads. In this way, drives and mechanical layout may be kept less robust, thereby reducing material input and costs. In order to keep the heliostat at an appropriate size, small mirrors (around 10×10 cm2) have to be used, which are placed in a box with a transparent cover. Innovative drive systems are developed in order to obtain a cost-effective design. A 0.5×0.5 m2 demonstration unit will be constructed. Tests of the unit are carried out with a high-precision artificial sun unit that imitates the sun’s path with an accuracy of less than 0.5 mrad and creates a beam of parallel light with a divergence of less than 4 mrad.


Author(s):  
Joachim Goettsche ◽  
Bernhard Hoffschmidt ◽  
Stefan Schmitz ◽  
Markus Sauerborn ◽  
Reiner Buck ◽  
...  

The cost of solar tower power plants is dominated by the heliostat field making up roughly 50% of investment costs. Classical heliostat design is dominated by mirrors brought into position by steel structures and drives that guarantee high accuracies under wind loads and thermal stress situations. A large fraction of costs is caused by the stiffness requirements of the steel structure, typically resulting in ∼20 kg/m2 steel per mirror area. The typical cost figure of heliostats is currently in the area of 150 €/m2 caused by the increasing price of the necessary raw materials. An interesting option to reduce costs lies in a heliostat design where all moving parts are protected from wind loads. In this way, drives and mechanical layout may be kept less robust thereby reducing material input and costs. In order to keep the heliostat at an appropriate size, small mirrors (around 10 cm × 10 cm) have to be used which are placed in a box with transparent cover. Innovative drive systems are developed in order to obtain a cost-effective design. A 0.5 m × 0.5 m demonstration unit will be constructed. Tests of the unit are carried out with a high-precision artificial sun unit that imitates the sun’s path with an accuracy of less than 0.5 mrad and creates a beam of parallel light with divergence less than 4 mrad.


Author(s):  
Oren Lavan ◽  
Liran Anaby

<p>From a structural engineering point of view, wind effects pose one of the major challenges to tall buildings. From a performance/architectural point of view, climatologic aspects pose a major challenge. Remedies for each challenge separately have been proposed. One of the remedies for wind effects is the Tunes-Mass-Damper (TMD) or multiple TMD's. To mitigate climatological issues, the Double-Skin-Façade (DSF) has been developed. Recently it has been suggested to take advantage of the space between the two skins of the DSF system to allocate TMD's.</p><p>In this work, another step is taken towards a single remedy for both challenges. A modified version of the TMD-DSF system proposed by Moon (2016) is presented. That is, parts of the mass of the DSF envelope itself are used as part of a multiple TMD (MTMD) system. This is obtained by connecting these parts to the building using springs and dampers while allowing the DSF to move parallel to the floor edges. Furthermore, the DSF-MTMD system is optimized using a formal optimization approach. The optimization indicates which parts of the envelope should be connected to the building rigidly and which should be used as TMD's. Furthermore, the properties of the springs and the dampers are determined by minimizing the cost associated with transforming the DSF system to a DSF-MTMD system and limiting wind responses to desired values.</p>


BIOMATH ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 2106147
Author(s):  
Debkumar Pal ◽  
D Ghosh ◽  
P K Santra ◽  
G S Mahapatra

This paper presents the current situation and how to minimize its effect in India through a mathematical model of infectious Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This model consists of six compartments to population classes consisting of susceptible, exposed, home quarantined, government quarantined, infected individuals in treatment, and recovered class. The basic reproduction number is calculated, and the stabilities of the proposed model at the disease-free equilibrium and endemic equilibrium are observed. The next crucial treatment control of the Covid-19 epidemic model is presented in India's situation. An objective function is considered by incorporating the optimal infected individuals and the cost of necessary treatment. Finally, optimal control is achieved that minimizes our anticipated objective function. Numerical observations are presented utilizing MATLAB software to demonstrate the consistency of present-day representation from a realistic standpoint.


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