Structural Design of a Heliostat as a Senior Design Project

Abstract

Solar energy capture efficiency is an important parameter since there is an urgent need to use renewable energy sources in an effective manner. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Plants use heliostats which can track the movement of the sun for increased energy storage. Different heliostat designs already in the open literature are reviewed in this paper. 5 different heliostat designs are prepared to compare and select the most effective one. Finite element analysis (FEA) is employed using the pressure obtained through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. Finally safety factor against yielding was used to compare the design and the least safety factor satisfying the requirements is selected as the result of the senior design project, the best design was with sefty factor 3.7 with Max Total Deformation was 16.982 mm.