A Study on the Optical Efficiency of Solar Concentrators Based on Ray Tracing Method

Abstract

This paper calculates the solar altitude angle, solar azimuth angle, and normal direct solar radiation. Subsequently, utilizing geometric optics and ray propagation theory, this study employs vector methods combined with the law of light reflection to compute the cosine efficiency. By characterizing the equivalent shadow shading using the topological properties of connected regions, the approximate shadow shading efficiency is determined through the element method. Finally, based on the principles of ray tracing, this paper derives the Gaussian flux density distribution formula for the collector truncation efficiency and calculates the truncation efficiency. Ultimately, through iterative calculations and averaging for different times and locations, this paper successfully obtains the optical efficiency and annual average output thermal power of the solar concentrator field at various time points. The annual average optical efficiency, annual average cosine efficiency, annual average shadow shading efficiency, and annual average truncation efficiency are found to be 0.64, 0.76, 0.96, and 0.98, respectively. Consequently, the annual average output thermal power and the annual average output thermal power per unit area are determined to be 38.93 and 0.62, respectively.