A Study about Wind Stresses of 4-Dish Parabolic Solar Collector System by Using FEM and Response Surface Method

Abstract

This paper presented a study about maximum stresses acting on the 4-dish solar collector system, which caused by excessive wind. For this, Central Composite Design and Response Surface Method were used on the basis of maximum stresses calculated by Finite Element Method. VisualDOC was used for CCD (Central Composite Design) and RSM (Response Surface Method), and Ansys was used for FEM (Finite Element Method) analysis. 9 cases of CCD points were selected and FEM analyses were conducted at these points. Based on these results, response surface function was constructed to model maximum stresses as function of wind velocity and thickness of dish support bar. In order to evaluate RSM model, arbitrary point were selected, and maximum stresses calculated by RSM were compared with those calculated by FEM.