Abstract
Despite the importance of designing support structures for solar collectors, very little reliable work has been done to investigate the forces of the wind on heliostats of solar tower at real scale. Wind loads on heliostats are usually determined at low-speed wind tunnels scale, where the design full-scale Reynolds number cannot be reached. In the present study, measured data are used to validate the simulations at wind tunnel scale. Thereafter, by using the same method, three-dimensional numerical simulations of turbulent wind flow around a big heliostat of solar tower are performed. The obtained numerical results are presented for several elevation angles at normal operation and stow position. The results revealed that the known stow position (when the backside of the heliostat is facing the ground) is not the optimum position (other optimum elevation angles are discovered) especially with high wind speed, and the effect of torque tube is significant on heliostat mean wind loads.
Highlights
The heliostat field is the main cost factor of solar tower plants
The results showed that the gap size effects due to wind load are no need to take into account in design of heliostats
Reference [4] studied by wind tunnel tests and numerical simulation the wind-induced dynamic response and fluctuating wind pressure characteristics of heliostats [1] published two important studies: wind loads on heliostats and photovoltaic trackers at various Reynolds numbers, and the second is about the wind loads on heliostats and photovoltaic trackers of various aspect ratios at wind tunnel scale
Summary
The heliostat field is the main cost factor of solar tower plants. For a cost efficient dimensioning of the heliostats, the wind loads must be known [1]. Reference [5] introduced a design method by define extensively wind loads on flat heliostats through boundary layer wind tunnel tests [3] studied the gap effects of the wind load on heliostats by wind tunnel tests and numerical simulation. Reference [4] studied by wind tunnel tests and numerical simulation the wind-induced dynamic response and fluctuating wind pressure characteristics of heliostats [1] published two important studies: wind loads on heliostats and photovoltaic trackers at various Reynolds numbers, and the second is about the wind loads on heliostats and photovoltaic trackers of various aspect ratios at wind tunnel scale. We performed firstly numerical tests on the aerodynamic loads of heliostat at wind tunnel scale. We performed a series of numerical tests to gather information on the aerodynamic loads on big heliostat at real scale. Understanding the aerodynamic behaviour and loading of our heliostat design enabled systems to be designed to avoid the cost of the heliostat damage and failure [2]
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