Wind effects in solar fields with various collector designs

Abstract

Abstract. Parabolic trough power plants are often located in areas that are subjected to high wind speeds, as an open terrain without any obstructions is beneficial for the plant performance. The wind impacts both the structural requirements and the performance of the plant. The aerodynamic loads from the wind impose strong requirements on the support structure of the reflectors, and they also impact the tracking accuracy. On a thermal level the airflow around the glass envelope of the receiver tube cools its outer surface through forced convection, thereby contributing to the heat loss.Based on previous studies at the level of an individual row of collectors, this study analyses the wind effects in a full-scale solar field of different continuous and staggered trough designs. The airflow around several rows of parabolic trough collectors (PTC) is simulated at full scale in steady state simulations in an atmospheric boundary layer flow using the commercial computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS R CFX 15.0. The effect of the wake of a collector row on the following collectors is analysed, and the aerodynamic loads are compared between the different geometries.The outermost collectors of a solar field experience the highest wind forces, as the rows in the interior of the solar field are protected from high wind speeds. While the aerodynamic forces in the interior of the solar field are almost independent of the collector shape, the deeper troughs (with large rim angles) tested in this study show a lower heat loss due to forced convection on the outer surface of the receiver tube than the shallower ones (with small rim angles) in most of the solar field.

Transient simulation of an atmospheric boundary layer flow past a heliostat using the Scale-Adaptive Simulation turbulence model

“…Unfortunately, RANS models fail to resolve the most energy-containing turbulent structures and represent most of the interactions between the vorticies of different scales (Fröhlich and von Terzi, 2008). Most CFD studies that address wind loading in CSP are done using RANS simulations (Christo, 2012, Zemler et al, 2013, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) (Boddupalli et al, 2017, Hachicha et al, 2013 or hybrid RANS/LES methods such as SAS (Paetzold et al, 2014(Paetzold et al, , 2015(Paetzold et al, , 2016, Stress-Blended Eddy Simulation (Wolmarans and Craig, 2019) or Detached Eddy Simulation (Poulain et al, 2016b). One can combine transient simulations with a modal analysis in order to assess the dynamic wind loading of a structure.…”

Experimental investigation of aerodynamic vibrations of solar wing system

“…Lots of damage to solar panels has been reported because of inadequate estimation of design wind loads, and this has attracted the attention of wind engineers worldwide. As it is difficult to conduct field measurements on solar panels especially on their upper surfaces, and a large number of wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analyses of ground-mounted solar panels have been conducted by numerous researchers (Aly and Bitsuamlak, 2013; Andre et al, 2017; Bitsuamlak et al, 2010; Kopp et al, 2002; Paetzold et al, 2016; Radu and Axinte, 1989; Rohr et al, 2015; Shademan and Hangan, 2009; Somekawa et al, 2013; Strobel and Banks, 2014), some have focused on the characteristics of dynamic wind loading (Andre et al, 2017; Rohr et al, 2015; Strobel and Banks, 2014) and some on the effects of a large geometric scale model (Banks, 2011; Kray and Paul, 2017). And recently in Japan, Manual of Wind Resistant Design for Photovoltaic Systems (Committee of Wind Load Estimation on Photovoltaic System, 2017) was published to help engineers and practitioners to design and maintain solar power systems with higher reliability.…”