Numerical Calculation of Wind Loads over a Dish Solar Concentrator

To study the variation law of wind load coefficient of a 25 kW dish solar concentrator under different working conditions, and to determine its best and worst working condition, a watershed model was built up for the concentrator using Realizable k-ε turbulence model with Fluent 14.0 software, so as to simulate the flow field around the concentrator. Results show that the resistance coefficient is proportional to the effective windward area of the dish solar concentrator, and its maximum absolute value is 1.42. At the altitude angle of 60° and the azimuth angle of 0°, the absolute value of lift coefficient reaches its maximum of 1.60. At different altitude angles (except for 90°), the lateral force coefficient, the rolling moment coefficient and the azimuth moment coefficient are approximately in sinusoidal changes with the azimuth angle, with their absolute values being 1.34, 0.18 and 0.26 respectively. The optimal avoiding condition of the dish solar concentrator lies in 90°-180°, and the worst case is 0°-0°.