Optical sensitivity analysis of geometrical deformation on the parabolic trough solar collector with Monte Carlo Ray-Trace method

This paper evaluated the influences of three kinds of geometrical deformations including global deformation, local rotation deformation and local linear deformation, on the optical performance of parabolic trough solar collector (PTC). An optical analysis of PTC system with different geometrical deformations was performed with the Monte Carlo Ray-Trace method to predict the optical efficiency and the radiation flux distribution on the receiver. The results show that the elliptic profile of the concentrator mirror results in a local hot spot on the receiver, which may shorten the receiver service life, among those cases with different global deformations. The optical performance of parabolic trough concentrator is almost not affected by rotation angle in the range of -0.3 to 0.3 degrees. And the optical efficiency could be maintained above 90% of that under non-deformation condition when the linear deformation length is less than 6.0% of half aperture width. The local deformation at the bottom of the concentrator induces a more apparent deficit of the performance compared with the case of top local deformation. Additionally, the optical efficiency is inversely proportional to the length of part which is removed from the concentrator. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.