Optical performance evaluation of a 2-D and 3-D hyperboloid solar concentrator

Ray tracing is an important tool for the design of elliptical–hyperboloid concentrators (EHC). Optical efficiency for a range of parameters such as of incidence angle, concentrator height and different diameters of the receiver can be investigated through ray trace analysis. An extensive theoretical prediction of 2-D and 3-D ray tracing techniques has been adopted in the current investigation to calculate the optical efficiency of the novel EHC. An optical efficiency of 63% was found for a 2-D model of the EHC with the following dimensions: height 0.85 m, aperture length 1m, receiver diameter 0.182 m and concentration ratio of 8X. The reflectivity of the EHC is considered to be 0.94. Due to the three-dimensional nature of the EHC, the optical efficiency was improved to 78% based on 3-D ray trace geometry.