A new modelling method and unified code with MCRT for concentrating solar collectors and its applications

The main objective of the present work is to develop a general-purpose numerical method for improving design/simulation tools for the concentrating solar collectors (CSCs) of concentrated solar power (CSP) systems. A new modelling method and homemade unified code with the Monte Carlo Ray-Trace (MCRT) method for the CSCs are presented firstly. The details of the new designing method and homemade unified code with MCRT for numerical investigations on solar concentrating and collecting characteristics of the CSCs are introduced. Three coordinate systems are used in the MCRT program and can be totally independent from each other. Solar radiation in participating medium and/or non-participating medium can be taken into account simultaneously or dividedly in the simulation. The criteria of data processing and method/code checking are also proposed in detail. Finally the proposed method and code are applied to simulate and analyze the involuted photo-thermal conversion processes in three typical CSCs. The results show that the proposed method and model are reliable to simulate various types of CSCs. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.