Design, construction and tests of a high flux solar simulator.

• Ano de defesa: 2019
• Autor(a) principal: Canto, Luma Fonseca do
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Concentrated solar power; CSP; Energia solar; Fontes alternativas de energia; HFSS; High flux solar simulator; Radiação (Calor); Reflexão do calor (Simulação); Solar fuel
• Link de acesso: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/3/3150/tde-20032020-091413/

The growth on energy consumption worldwide in the last year, along with the increasingly care about the amount of pollutants emitted to the atmosphere when working with fossil sources have revealed the need of diversifying the energy grid. The solar fuels are produced enriching the calorific power of combustibles such as biomass or shale gas, by using the thermal energy of the Sun as activating energy for the given conversion processes. Considering the great direct solar radiation index of center-west and northeast of Brazil, the generation of solar fuels appears as a fine option in this country. However, this technology is not yet fully developed and research with known input parameters is still needed. Given the seasonal and intermittent characteristics of the solar radiation, the use of a simulator capable of emulating the high thermal flux of the concentrated solar power (CSP), while maintaining steady conditions is required. In this way, this work aims in the design, construction and tests of a high flux solar simulator (HFSS) to be used on the research of solar fuels. After carrying out an extensive literature review, an HFSS composed of two commercial sky searchlights ,working as light sources, and parabolic reflectors, as concentrators, has been proposed. Using the Monte Carlo ray tracing (MCRT) method, the geometry of the concentrators has been designed and the concentrated heat flux, holding or not a secondary concentrator device, have been previously analyzed. The development of a mathematical analysis for a black body cavity has been conducted, and it has drawn the basis for the design and construction of a calorimeter cavity. Then tests have been conducted, among which are: the definition of the electric-to-radiant ratio of the light sources, following three different methods; the evaluation of the concentrated heat flux of the HFSS; and the analysis of the power intensity inside the cavity calorimeter, when using a secondary concentrator. The use of a black and white camera, a near-Lambertian target and a heat flux gauge have granted the calibration of the gray-scale of the camera, hence if the HFSS proposed is expanded by adding more lamps, it can be easily photographically characterized in terms of heat flux.