Flux Mapping the 400 m2 “Big Dish” at the Australian National University

Abstract

Videographic flux mapping has been used to characterise the focal flux distribution of the 400 m2 solar concentrator located at the Australian National University. Peak fluxes in the focal region of 1.13 MW m−2 have been recorded, which corresponds to a concentration of 1790 suns normalized to 1000 W m−2 insolation and 100 percent mirror reflectivity. Comparisons with ray trace predicted fluxes incorporating surface normal errors indicates that the dish surface has a mean surface error standard deviation of 6 milliradian.

Performance analysis of a novel solar concentrator using lunar flux mapping techniques

“…However, Ho and Khalsa (2012) were able to calculate the flux incident on a Lambertian surface with a relative error of 2%. The methods outlined by Ho and Khalsa (2012) as well as Burgess et al (2012) were later also modified for lunar testing by Siangsukone et al (2004), Pye et al (2017) and Wolff et al (2018) for solar dishes with non-faceted parabolic concentrator designs. Ciocca and Wang (2013) show how closely the lunar spectrum matches that of the standard solar spectrum and why it is a suitable substitute for the sun.…”

“…An advantage of lunar flux mapping is that the analysis may be performed during a full moon at night instead of in the midday sun since the moon is considered to produce a flux distribution that is comparable to that of the sun due to their similar angular diameters (Siangsukone et al, 2004). The sun's average angular diameter is reported as being 0.53˚ by Goswami (2014) where the moon's average angular diameter is 0.518˚ according to Faulkner (1998).…”