Pergamon

0 0 3 8 - 0 9 2 X ( 9 5 ) 0 0 0 6 1 - 5
Solar Energy Vol. 55, No. 5, pp. 415-416, 1995
Copyright 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in the U.S.A. All rights reserved
0038-092X/95 $9.50 +0.00
L E T T E R T O T HE E DI T OR
Comment s on Concentration Distributions in Cylindrical Receiver/Paraboloidal Dish Concentrator
Systems
by
Pet er D. Jones and Lili Wang
Solar Energy 54( 2) , 115-123 (1995)
To t he Edi t or:
I have f ound very i nt erest i ng t he i nf or mat i on
pr ovi ded by this paper about t he design of t he
recei ver for space sol ar power systems or mat eri -
als processi ng fur nace appl i cat i ons.
Ther e is, however, a poi nt which deserves a
little bit mor e at t ent i on. Thi s refers t o t he t reat -
ment of t he t r acki ng (or sun-fol l owi ng poi nt i ng)
errors. The aut hor s model ed these er r or s as a
t i me- i ndependent Gaussi an di st r i but i on [see
t hei r eqn (15)]. Thi s is a c ommon pract i ce in
t he present sol ar ener gy l i t erat ure, which has
t he advant age (as t he aut hor s not i fi ed) of facili-
t at i ng t he comput at i ons when t he concent r at ed
flux is det er mi ned by convol ut i ons. However ,
t here is no theoretical justification for this
a priori choice.
I know, of course, what a difficult t ask is,
somet i mes, t o fight t he scientific conveni ence
and/ or habi t ude. Despi t e of this fact I i nt end t o
out l i ne t hat t her e were a few at t empt s t o i nt r o-
duce mor e appr opr i at e appr oxi mat i ons for t he
t r acki ng er r or s di st ri but i ons. So, on one hand,
some aut hor s preferred t o use empi ri cal di st ri bu-
tions, based in par t on exper i ment al dat a
( Hughes, 1978; Li pps and Walzel, 1979). On t he
ot her hand t heor et i cal studies were per for med.
Thus, by using t echni ques of i nt egral geomet r y
and geomet r i cal probabi l i t i es t he time-
i ndependent t r acki ng er r or di st r i but i on was
rigourously est abl i shed, in case of bot h fixed and
movi ng mi r r or cent er (Badescu, 1982).
As an exampl e I shall give here t he simplest
f or mul a (zero poi nt i ng offset) t o eval uat e t he
pr obabi l i t y p(r) t hat t he local reflected r ay meet
t he i mage pl ane at a di st ance r fr om t he focal
point:
C
O<_r<a
0 r>a.
(1)
Her e C is a nor mal i zi ng const ant , f i s t he local
focal l engt h while a is a t r acki ng syst em depen-
dent length. Equat i on (1) is a bounded di st ri bu-
t i on because a < oo. Of course, t he pr obabi l i t y
p can be easily expressed as a funct i on of an
angul ar vari abl e, as t he local mi sal i gnment angle
0 bet ween the recei ver axis and a sol ar di sk
poi nt , used by Jones and Wang.
Fur t her studies (Badescu, 1994) showed t hat
t he equat i on (1) and t he empi ri cal di st r i but i ons
eval uat e close enough l ong- t er m per for mances
in case of a par abol i c di sh sol ar power system.
Also, appr opr i at e bounded Gaussi an di st ri bu-
t i ons can be used wi t h good results in some
special cases, as for mi r r or s wi t h good qual i t y
opt i cs and accur at e t r acki ng systems [as t he
aut hor s of t he paper in discussion cor r ect l y
obser ved in a shor t sent ence before t hei r equa-
t i on (17)]. Gener al l y, classical (un-bounded)
Gaussi an di st ri but i ons predi ct per for mances
whi ch are less t han t hose eval uat ed by using
bounde d di st ri but i ons.
The above comment s rel at ed t o t he appr oach
of t he t r acki ng er r or di st r i but i on do not di mi n-
ish t he mer i t of t he paper by Jones and Wang,
whi ch represent in my opi ni on a val uabl e cont r i -
but i on t o t he st udy of t he concent r at i on distri-
but i ons on cyl i ndri cal receivers.
Fi nal l y, I wish t o t hank t he It al i an Sol ar
Ener gy Soci et y which suppor t s t he Romani an
Sol ar Ener gy Soci et y by cover i ng t he subscrip-
t i on t o t he j our nal . So, we are kept in t ouch
wi t h t he latest paper s in t he field. Grazi e!
VI ORE L BADE S C U
ISES Member
Group of Solar Energy and Applications
Corp Facultate Mecanica, Sala CG I29
Polytechnic University of Bucarest
Spl lndependentei 313, Bucarest 79590
Romania
REFERENCES
Bades cu V. Un e eval uat i on pr obabi l i st e pour l ' er r eur
d ' o r i e n t a t i o n des hel i ost at s. Rev. Phys. Appl. 17,
421 434 (1982).
415
416 Let t er t o t he Edi t or
Bades cu V. Di fferent t r acki ng er r or di s t r i but i ons and t hei r
effects on t he l ong- t er m per f or mances of par abol i c di sh
sol ar power s ys t ems . Int. J. Solar Energy 14, 203- 216
(1994).
Hughe s R. O. Effects of poi nt i ng er r or s on recei ver per for -
ma n c e for par abol i c di s h sol ar concent r at or s . Proc. 13th
lntersoc. Energy Convers. Engng Conf. 2, 1563- 1569
(1978).
Lipps F. W. and Walzel M. D. An analytic evaluation of
the flux density due to sunlight reflected from a flat
mirror having a polygonal boundary. Solar Energy 21,
113 121 (1979).
Aut hor ' s Repl y ...
Pr ofessor Badescu correct l y surmises t hat the
Gaussi an form of the t r acki ng er r or was chosen
for comput at i onal convenience. In this paper
we have concent r at ed on finding the effect on
concent r at ed flux di st ri but i on of a det ermi ni st i c
al i gnment er r or bet ween the concent r at or axis
and the solar posi t i on vector. In or der t o present
results of a useful completeness, we empl oyed
the simplified Gaussi an form for the st ochast i c
di st ri but i on of t hat al i gnment error, as resulting
from several mechani cal and physical sources.
We do not quest i on t hat the accur acy of the
comput at i ons coul d be i mpr oved by using mor e
realistic represent at i ons of t r acki ng system er r or
di st ri but i ons, and t hank Professor Badescu for
poi nt i ng out t hat such i mpr ovement s may be
appl i ed to the general fr amewor k of our mo d e l
PETER D. JONES
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Auburn University
201 Ross Hall
AL36849-5341
U.S.A.