Abstract
The increasing applications of solar energy have led to the development of various solar collectors with complex geometries. Conventional methods cannot directly calculate the solar radiation on such surfaces. This research is aimed to develop a method and a computer code (Fortran) to determine solar energy reception on curved surfaces. The presented method can be flexibly applied to any surface function and the solar radiation model. The method is based on dividing a curved surface into a large number of small flat elements and computing the solar radiation on each of these elements, which will be finally summed to attain the total radiation. The results of the presented method were compared with an analytical method for a cylindrical surface, which showed excellent accuracy (relative error of 0.0042%). The results were also evaluated by ANSYS-Fluent commercial software with two different geometries (a hemisphere and paraboloid). The relative difference between the Fortran code and ANSYS-Fluent results was 0.85 and 4.43% for the hemisphere and paraboloid, respectively. Moreover, the results were compared with an experimental test on a semi-spherical solar collector, which indicated the relative error of 0.13%. The developed Fortran code for the algorithm can be easily converted to other programming languages.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
