The purpose of this paper is to validate SolTrace for concentrating solar investigations at CSIR by means of a test case: the comparison of the flux distribution in the focal spot of a 1.25 m2 target aligned heliostat predicted by the ray tracing model with the experimental flux distribution measured using a calorimeter. Preliminary results show that the near-Gaussian shape and radial extent of the flux distribution in the focal spot of the 1.25m2 heliostat is well predicted by ray-tracing simulation using SolTrace. The level of flux is underpredicted by about 50%, however. The uncertainty of the peak flux measurement was found to be between 16 and 21%, so any conclusions regarding the flux level predictive accuracy of SolTrace first require repeating the experimental measurements taking care to increase the sensitivity of the flux measurement.
Reference:
Maliage, M and Roos, TH. The flux distribution from a 1.25m2 target aligned heliostat: comparison of ray tracing and experimental results. Proceedings 1st Southern African Solar Energy Conference, Stellenbosch, 21-23 May 2012
Maliage, M., & Roos, T. (2012). The flux distribution from a 1.25m2 target aligned heliostat: comparison of ray tracing and experimental results. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5933
Maliage, M, and TH Roos. "The flux distribution from a 1.25m2 target aligned heliostat: comparison of ray tracing and experimental results." (2012): http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5933
Maliage M, Roos T, The flux distribution from a 1.25m2 target aligned heliostat: comparison of ray tracing and experimental results; 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5933 .
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