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Mathematical modeling and analysis of compound parabolic concentrator

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International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET)
Volume 9, Issue 6, June 2018, pp. 113–121, Article ID: IJMET_09_06_014
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=9&IType=6
ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

MATHEMATICAL MODELING AND ANALYSIS

OF COMPOUND PARABOLIC
CONCENTRATOR USING SOLTRACE
Supriya S More
Assistant Professor, Automobile Engineering Department, RIT, Sakharale.

Dr. G. Ravindranath
Principal, Sampoorn Institute of Technology & Research, Benglore.

Sagar E More
Director, Technical, Utopia Automation and Control, Satara

Dr. S.S. Thipase

Assistant Director, Automotive Research Association of India, Pune

ABSTRACT
Efficient conversion of Solar energy in to usable form is need of era. The solar
energy conversion in electrical or thermal form for its decentralized application
should be appreciated in Asian countries. Increase in gain of solar thermal system will
be credibility of efficient solar thermal absorber. Concentrator plays main role in
efficient thermal absorber. The present research has presented Mathematical
modeling and simulation of solar incident radiation on CPC with ray tracing
software. In this research work attempt has been made to design thermally efficient
optics. The medium concentration solar thermal absorber up to 5X have been
designed and simulated. The SolTrace ray tracing software shows pattern of flux
distribution on the receiver. The results are surprising. It shows uneven pattern of
distribution of solar incident radiation on receiver. Mathematical relations between
maximum and minimum flux with average flux has been built. SolTrace results have
been utilized to find position of this maximum and minimum flux distribution on the
receiver. Effect of change in flux distribution with change in aperture width has been
also evaluated by building different models in SolTrace software. These results will
help to develop heat receiver based on maximum heat extraction from maximum heat
receiving area on receiver. This will achieve maximum possible heat gain.
Development of sustainable model for medium temperature (up to 2000 C)
temperature application can be possible with this technology.
Key words: compound parabolic concentrator, flux distribution, Ray tracing, solar,
SolTrace

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 Supriya S More, Dr. G. Ravindranath, Sagar E More and Dr. S.S. Thipase

Cite this Article: Supriya S More, Dr. G. Ravindranath, Sagar E More and
Dr. S.S. Thipase, Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Compound Parabolic
Concentrator using SolTrace, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and
Technology 9(6), 2018, pp. 113–121.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=9&IType=6

1. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

Solar energy is one of the popular non-conventional energy sources available in the abundant
form in Asian countries. In spite of this, effective utilization of the solar irradiation falling on
the earth is challenging task. The solar irradiance varies with relative positions of sun and
earth. The total irradiance (direct and diffuse) encashment into a usable form of energy can be
possible with scientifically designed solar thermal systems. Carefully designed solar thermal
absorber based on practical consideration and validation of the design with suitable the
software will help to trap more useful energy.
Compound parabolic concentrators are called as non imaging concentrators, as the
concentration of all incident rays is at the receiver. Design of medium concentration
compound parabolic concentrator requires perfect aperture width and acceptance angle. The
height is an interesting parameter as truncation in height changes the concentration ratio. The
optimization of CPC will balance between concentration ratio and manufacturing cost (which
lowers with truncation).
The concentrator is one of the prime components of the solar thermal system. Jaaz and
Hasan [7] have used CPC for, photovoltaic solar collector [10]. Seth and Shah [1], designed
and developed CPC with medium concentration (2 to 100) and truncated height and analyzed
for thermal efficiency. Rahman, Isa and Goh [2], Bellos, Korees [4] had optimized the
design by truncation of CPC baring some affordable loss in concentration ratio at the same
time reduction in cost-effectively. Zheng, Yang [6], have presented Experimental and
Numerical Analysis of CPC, Tchinda[3] developed solar air heater with CPC. Osório and
Horta [15], compared various ray tracing and optical simulation software. The Optical
simulation of ray tracing software for the various application has been put forth by
Zhongyuan and Shengyan [5] and Sainath and Nitin [8], Deep and Dinesh [13],.The attempts
of heat recovery has been made and reviewed in some literature[9,11]. Further improvements
in the design of CPC with wings have been tried [12] for improving the efficiency of CPC.
The simulation software comparison has been done [14] in view of applicability and operating
ease.
The flux pattern distribution on the receiver should be a key factor in designing solar
thermal absorber. This could be dealt best with performing ray tracing of the concentrator.
Though some literature has addressed these issues using some ray tracing software, neither
mathematical modelling have been presented nor the use of SolTrace software has been
demonstrated for simulation in any of the literature. This research work has put forth
mathematical modelling of the compound solar concentrator. The design has been optimized
for medium concentration ratio to serve medium temperature applications. The analysis of
concentrator has been done using SolTrace ray tracing software. The result also supports the
experimental data.

2. MODELLING OF COMPOUND PARABOLIC CONCENTRATOR

Concentrators are of different types like a flat plate, parabolic, dish type etc. Use of flat plate
concentrator is limited due to its low-temperature gain while dish type of concentrator

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 Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Compound Parabolic Concentrator using SolTrace

requires more space. These factors eliminate the possibility of using this concentrator for a
standalone solar thermal system for medium temperature application. Use of parabolic
concentrator for medium temperature application is appreciated by many scientists. Even
though, compound parabolic concentrators are more popular for medium temperature
applications.
Compound parabolic concentrator profile is obtained from two simple parabolas.Fig.1
illustrates the terminology of Compound parabolic concentrator.

Figure 1 Terminology of CPC concentrator

The equation of Parabola is,

(1)

The full height of CPC

( ) (2)

The point on parabola C can be expressed in terms of co-ordinates,

X= b cos c and Y= b (1- sin c)/ 2
Height to aperture ratio is given by,

* + cos (3)

The two models have been designed as shown in fig 2.based on above formulas one with
receiver width 100 mm and another with 200mm. The acceptance angles for both is same i.e.
11.54 degree. The full height for the first model is 1469 mm and for a second it is2938 mm
which is truncated at 820 mm. The full height leads to more material and manufacturing cost,
so the parabola is truncated to optimize the design from concentration ratio and manufacturing
cost point of view. There seems a mere compromise in concentration ratio (up to 10% ) while
great reduction in cost(up to 40%),[2].

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 Supriya S More, Dr. G. Ravindranath, Sagar E More and Dr. S.S. Thipase

(a) … (b)

Figure 2 (a) Complete drawing of CPC concentrator,(b) Fabricated CPC.

3. SIMULATION OF CPC
SolTrace is ray tracing software. It is developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory
which is part of United State Federal Energy Department. In SolTrace at first, the script file
has been developed. Then the sun parameters are entered in the software like position,
reflecting surfaces etc. Then it is analyzed for a specific number of rays. The images of
analysis are given in following diagrams. Fig.3 (a) shows ray tracing of model 1 with 100 mm
aperture width while Fig.3 (b) is of ray tracing diagram of model 2 with 200 mm aperture
width. Table 1 gives the numerical data of ray tracing for both the models. The following
diagrams show ray tracing assuming count of 10,000 ray incident on aperture area. The rays
striking at reflecting surfaces and concentrated at focal plane called receiver in the CPC.

(a) (b)

Figure 3 Ray Tracing diagrams with 0 0 incident angle. (a) Model 1(100 mm receiver) (b) Model 2
(200 mm receiver)

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 Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Compound Parabolic Concentrator using SolTrace

Table 1 Model 1 Result Analysis Parameters

Sr.No. Parameter Model 1 Model 2
1. Sun Ray Count 49446 69196
2. Direct Normal Irradiance 1000 1000
3. No of Plotted Rays 23157 23099

The same analysis can be done by writing script file in SolTrace Software instead of
developing a model and GUI based analysis.
It is interesting to know flux distribution on the receiver surface. The number of rays
striking at the specific position on the receiver will decide the concentration of heat energy at
that area which is counted as flux density. The CPC has been designed for 5X concentration.
This denoted the flux on the receiver should be 5000KW/m2. The following diagram shows
flux density of model 1 . The surface plot and contour plots are Shown in Fig.4 for Model 1
and Fig.5 for Model 2 . Table 2 shows the corresponding numerical data of flux distribution
graph for both models.

(a) (b)

Figure 4 Flux distribution over the receiver of Model 1 (a) contour plot (b) surface plot

(a) (b)

Figure 5 Flux distribution over receiver of Model 2 (a) contour plot (b) surface plot

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 Supriya S More, Dr. G. Ravindranath, Sagar E More and Dr. S.S. Thipase

Table 2.Model 1 Result Analysis Parameters

Sr.No. Parameter Model 1 Model 2
1. Sun Ray Count 49446 69196
2. Peak Flux in W/m2 10159 (+/- 14.14%) 8663.3 (+/- 4.81%)
3. Minimum Flux in W/m2 1015.9 2231
4. Average Flux in W/m2 5022.3(+/- 0.65%) 4999.84(+/- 0.20%)
5. Uniformity 0.4 0.36

Above results are surprising, till this moment researchers are assuming a uniform
distribution of the solar irradiance on the receiver. The result shows its non-uniform in nature
and flux density varies with the position of incident ray on the receiver after reflecting from
parabolic reflectors. The flux density varies in the range of 1015.9 W/m2 to 10,159 W/m2 in
case of Model 1.While it ranges between 2231 W/m2 to 8663.3 W/m2 in case of Model 2.

4. EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION
Experimental set up for the testing of the compound parabolic concentrator is as shown in
fig.6. The monochromatic light beam of diameter 0.5 mm is used to observe the
concentration of rays on the absorber. The light source is mounted on a linear slide with
position counter. The aperture width is 500 mm on which total 500 positions are observed
during experimentation which are 1 mm successive points on the aperture. The rays get
reflected from the surfaces of concentrator and incident on the absorber surface.
The said positions of the incident rays are recorded as observations. This all data is
collected in observation table. The observation table given below shows that there are many
points where no of rays incident are more than one. The total no of positions on aperture
width with linear sliding mechanism counter counts 500.

Figure 6 Experimental set up for Evaluation of Ray Distribution Pattern

At the same time, the numbers of points on the absorber are 100. It ensures 5 sun
compound parabolic concentrations. Table 3 shows observations during experimentation.

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 Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Compound Parabolic Concentrator using SolTrace

Table 3 Model 1 Observations of Experimental Exercise.

Absorber No. of Absorber No. of Absorber No. of Absorber No. of Absorber No. of
Width Rays Width Rays Width Rays Width Rays Width Rays
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)
-50 7 -30 2 -10 7 10 7 30 2
-49 7 -29 3 -9 7 11 6 31 3
-48 7 -28 2 -8 7 12 7 32 3
-47 8 -27 2 -7 8 13 6 33 3
-46 7 -26 1 -6 8 14 6 34 4
-45 7 -25 1 -5 8 15 5 35 4
-44 5 -24 1 -4 8 16 5 36 4
-43 4 -23 2 -3 8 17 5 37 4
-42 5 -22 2 -2 8 18 4 38 5
-41 4 -21 2 -1 9 19 3 39 4
-40 5 -20 2 0 9 20 2 40 5
-39 4 -19 3 1 9 21 2 41 5
-38 5 -18 4 2 8 22 1 42 5
-37 4 -17 5 3 8 23 2 43 4
-36 4 -16 5 4 8 24 1 44 5
-35 4 -15 5 5 8 25 1 45 7
-34 4 -14 6 6 8 26 1 46 7
-33 3 -13 6 7 8 27 2 47 8
-32 3 -12 7 8 7 28 2 48 7
-31 3 -11 6 9 7 29 3 49 7
50 8

Graph of Absorber width Vs No. of incident ray

10
No of Incident rays

8
6
4
2
0
-50 -45 -40 -35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Position Across Absorber Width in mm

Figure 7 Flux distribution along the receiver width based on experimental observations.

The result in Fig.7 shows that the ray concentration on the absorber is not constant. The
no of rays incident on the specific point on the absorber depends on the position of a point on
the absorber. The flux density varies as per band pattern. At centre and at the outer edges of
the absorber the flux density is maximum. There are total four flux band patterns whose
details are given in Table 4.

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 Supriya S More, Dr. G. Ravindranath, Sagar E More and Dr. S.S. Thipase

Table 4 Various Flux bands on Receiver Width

Model Aperture Absorber Flux Flux band-2 Flux band-3 Flux band-4 Flux
No. Width Width band-1 (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) band-5 (mm)
(mm) (mm) High Flux Low flux High Flux Low flux High Flux
1 500 100 -50 to -35 -35 to -20 -20 to 20 20 to 35 35 to 50
2 1000 200 -100 to -70 -70 to -40 -40 to 40 40 to 70 70 to100

5. RESULT DISCUSSION
The Experimental results are matching with simulation results. The flux band patterning is
similar in both the models when tested experimentally and in SolTrace ray tracing software.
The pattern of flux distribution can be expressed in the form of following relations,
Width of Band 1= 0.125 X …….(4)
Width of Band 2= 0.15 X …….. (5)
Width of Band 3= 0.25 X …….. (6)
Width of Band 4= 0.15 X …….. (7)
Width of Band 5= 0.125 X …… (8)
Where X is absorber width
The data obtained as a result is much useful in designing heat receiver which is situated
below absorber. The high flux area should have high heat receiving mechanism than low flux
receiving area. The design of such type of thermal heat receiver will add value in the solar
thermal system.

6. CONCLUSIONS
The article put forth design and analysis of CPC for obtaining efficient optics for solar
thermal absorber design. The two models with different absorber width but same
concentration ratio has been analyzed in SolTrace ray tracing software. The software results
give an uneven pattern of flux distribution. The same results have been observed during
experimental work. The ray with an average irradiance of 1000W/m2 is considered as per
Indian standards. For 5 sun solar compound parabolic collector the flux density varies from
1500 W/m2 to 10000 W/m2. There is a fixed pattern of flux distribution with five
distinguished bands of high and low flux density situated alternately. At the end, the average
density is 5000 W/m2 as expected during design. The major output of this work is an
evaluation of pattern of flux distribution on the absorber and the mathematical relations
obtained for flux distribution pattern. The same findings are useful in the design of efficient
heat receiver.

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 Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Compound Parabolic Concentrator using SolTrace

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