An optical analysis of a static 3-D solar concentrator

Concentrating technology is long established in the field of solar thermal applications. However, there is still scope for improvement due to innovation in design, materials and manufacturing methods. The optical efficiency of a solar concentrator depends largely on the geometry of the concentrator profile. This paper evaluates the optical performance of a static 3-D Elliptical Hyperboloid Concentrator (EHC) using ray tracing software. Ray tracing has been used extensively to calculate the optical efficiency of the static 3-D EHC. Performance parameters such as effective concentration ratio, optical efficiency and geometric concentration ratio are also evaluated for different aspect ratios of the elliptical profile. Optimization of the concentrator profile and geometry is also carried out to improve the overall performance; this parametric study includes the concentrator height, solar incidence angle and aspect ratio of the ellipse. The overall performance of the concentrator was assessed based on the acceptance angle, effective concentration ratio and optical efficiency. Finally, the flux distribution on the receiver area for different concentrator heights is also presented.