Scaling laws of Space Solar Power Satellite concentrator unit distortion model obtained by performance-driven separate similitude analysis method

Abstract

The distortion model may arise due to the inability to isometrically scale the thickness dimensions when utilizing similitude theory to develop scaling laws for large-scale concentrator units in the Space Solar Power Satellite. Previous works to address the distortion model neglect its negative impacts and persistent limits, resulting in insufficient prediction accuracy for prototype. To obtain scaling laws of the distortion model, this paper introduces a novel strategy called the performance-dominated separate similitude analysis, which significantly reduces the distortion model's negative impacts and persistent limits on similitude prediction. Firstly, performance parameters sensitive to the distortion model are generated by dimensional analysis and the governing equation method. Secondly, the distortion model is separated into two scaled models: complete and partial similitude, based on the sensitive performance parameters. Subsequently, the scaling laws of complete and partial similitude models are derived, respectively. Finally, the scaling laws of the distortion model are derived by combining the complete and partial similitude laws. The proposed method is validated through finite element model simulation for both the concentrator unit prototype and the distortion model. Results indicate that in the best case, the prediction error doesn't exceed 0.2 %, and the prediction accuracy can be improved by up to 87.34 % compared to the existing methods.