Development of a High-Flux Solar Simulator for Experimental Testing of High-Temperature Applications

Abstract

In the last few years, several studies have been carried out on concentrating solar thermal and thermochemical applications. These studies can be further enhanced by means of high-flux solar simulators (HFSS), since they allow the development of experimental tests under controlled irradiance conditions, regardless of sunshine. In this work, a new high-flux solar simulator, capable of reaching levels of irradiance higher than 100 W/cm2 (1000 suns), has been designed, built and characterized. This simulator is composed of 8 ellipsoidal specular reflectors, arranged face-down on a horizontal plane, in order to irradiate from the upper side any system requiring the simulation of concentrated solar radiation; differently from the HFSSs described in the scientific literature, this configuration allows the avoidance of any distortion of fluid-dynamic or convective phenomena within the system under investigation. As a first step, a numerical analysis of the HFSS has been carried out, simulating each real light source (Xe-arc), having a length of 6.5 mm, as a line of 5 sub-sources. Therefore, the HFSS has been built and characterized, measuring a maximum irradiance of 120 W/cm2 and a maximum temperature of 1007 °C; these values will be enough to develop experimental tests on lab-scale thermal and thermochemical solar applications.