Design and Characterization of the New FAHEX100 Concentrator of PSA's SF60 Solar Furnace

Abstract

The facets of the old Mc Donnell Douglas concentrator of Plataforma Solar de Almería –PSA- SF60 solar furnace were degraded after thirty years of service, which had a great influence on its thermal response and efficiency, as the reflectivity decreased significantly due to the reflective surface being corroded and scratched. That is why, it was decided to replace them by new facets with higher reflectivity and better optical conditions. This paper describes the new facets, as well as the new support structure and the assembly and alignment of the concentrator facets.  Finally, the technical characteristics of the new concentrator, and the power, size and flux distribution on the focus, are presented. For the new facets we selected a thin, hexagonal-shaped mirror bonded to an aluminum plate. Therefore, new facets with improved optical conditions were designed and manufactured and, for the assembly a new tubular structure was used to conform the new FAHEX100 concentrator To anticipate the behavior of the new FAHEX100 concentrator, a model was built in Tonatiuh, for which a geometric analysis of the facets was previously performed by means of photogrammetry. Once the facets were mounted on the concentrator, they were aligned by the Reverse Ilumination Method -RIM–, and the flux distribution on the focus was measured with a CCD camera. The performance of the SF60 solar furnace was improved significantly with the new FAHEX100 concentrator, including power, peak concentration, flux distribution on the focus, focus diameter and optical error σopt.