Optical Design of a Solar Dish Concentrator Based on Triangular Membrane Facets

The design of a solar dish concentrator is proposed based on triangular membrane facets for space power applications. The facet concentrator approximates a parabolic surface supported by a deployable perimeter truss structure, which originates from a large aperture space antenna. For optimizing the number of facets rows and focal-diameter ratio of the concentrator, Monte Carlo ray-tracing method is utilized to determine optical performance of the concentrator, and the system root-mean-square (RMS) deviation is considered in this design procedure. A 600-facet concentrator with focal-diameter ratio of 1.1 will achieve 83.63% of radiative collection efficiency over a 15 cm radius disk located in the focal plane, with a mean solar concentration ratio exceeding 300. The study in this paper is helpful for the development of the membrane facet concentrator.