Study and validation of a fast ray tracing method to determine density flux for symmetric solar optical systems
- Journal de Physique de la SOAPHYS (Société Ouest Africaine de la Physique) , 4 (1) : 1-7
Résumé
In this research paper, a computational program called MCMRDF-3D, is developed and validated by comparison with a reference software. MCMRDF-3D is formulated on Multi-Ray Monte Carlo Method for the determination of the distribution of solar irradiation along the receiver of any solarconcentrating system that withstand translational or rotational symmetries. This code incorporate an advantageous approach that consist in estimating the overall distribution of irradiation of a large scale solar concentrating systems on the basis of a consistent sample, then saving computation time, processor capacity and storage memory. The paper presents the new approach and applied it to determine the distribution of irradiation provided by three concentrators. We compare the processing time, the irradiation map rendering, and the size of numeric data, to those provided by a Reference software. The obtained irradiation distribution and power harvesting quantities over the receiver matches very well. We conclude that MCMRDF-3D proves to easy, fast, accurate and reliable approach for the simulation of solar concentrator system. Among other implications, this work opens a path for saving time when studying numerous symmetrical imaged and non-imaged optical systems. For future work, this time saving and flexible program will be of a significant help to envision optical errors from real behavior of optical surface in concentrating systems.
Mots-clés
transferts radiatifs, simulation, calculs rapides, méthode numérique, tests de validation