Optical design of an aspherical cylinder-type reflecting solar concentrator

Hua Qin, Chengxin Lei, Hanfa Liu, Yong Wang and Wenfeng Yuan

Energy, 2013, vol. 57, issue C, 751-758

Abstract: In this paper a highly efficient solar concentrating mirror is presented. A part of the aspherical cylinder's inner wall defined by a set of specific coefficients a2, a4, a6, a8, a10, a12, a14, a16 and C is used as reflective surfaces of concentrating mirror. Based on the particular aspherical equation and the optical law of reflection, the relationship between the direction vectors of the sunlight beams reflected from the cylindrical inner wall and the coefficients of an aspherical equation, a2, a4, a6, a8, a10, a12, a14, a16 and C has been derived. By optimizing these coefficients, the Sunbeams incident on the aspherical cylinder's inner wall can be focused on a very narrow line segment parallel to the cylindrical busbar and form a linear focus (focal line). The particular set of coefficients associated with the particular aspherical equation is obtained by using particle swarm optimization algorithm. The focusing effect of the solar concentrating mirror with respect to the particular set of coefficients is demonstrated by using computer simulations and the experiment. The theoretical results show that this solar concentrating mirror has a light compression ratio of about 285 to 1. The linear spot can be used as a strong light source or a high temperature heat source.

Keywords: Solar concentrating mirror; Aspheric cylindrical surface; Optimization of polynomial coefficients; Linear focus; Ray tracing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213004805
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:57:y:2013:i:c:p:751-758

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.05.059

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().