Maintaining receiver’s thermal stresses and corrosion below the material limits are issues that need careful attention in solar thermal towers. Both depend on heliostats’ aiming points over the central receiver and available direct solar radiation at any instant. Since this technology relies on an unavoidable time-changing resource, aiming points need to be properly manipulated to avoid excessive hot spots. This paper proposes a new aiming point strategy based on a multivariable model predictive control (MPC) approach. It shows an alternative approach by introducing an agent-based group behavior over heliostats’ subsets, which makes possible either concentrating or dispersing solar radiation as required by the MPC algorithm. Simulated results indicate that it is feasible to develop a closed-loop control procedure that distributes solar irradiance over the central receiver according to the predefined heat flux limits. The performance of the proposed approach is also compared with the results found in the available literature that uses a different methodology.
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June 2018
Research-Article
Multivariable Closed Control Loop Methodology for Heliostat Aiming Manipulation in Solar Central Receiver Systems
Jesús García,
Jesús García
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: jesusmg@uninorte.edu.co
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: jesusmg@uninorte.edu.co
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Ricardo Vasquez Padilla,
Ricardo Vasquez Padilla
School of Environment, Science
and Engineering,
Southern Cross University,
Lismore 2480, NSW, Australia
e-mail: ricardo.vasquez.padilla@scu.edu.au
and Engineering,
Southern Cross University,
Lismore 2480, NSW, Australia
e-mail: ricardo.vasquez.padilla@scu.edu.au
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Marco E. Sanjuan
Marco E. Sanjuan
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: msanjuan@uninorte.edu.co
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: msanjuan@uninorte.edu.co
Search for other works by this author on:
Jesús García
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: jesusmg@uninorte.edu.co
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: jesusmg@uninorte.edu.co
Yen Chean Soo Too
Ricardo Vasquez Padilla
School of Environment, Science
and Engineering,
Southern Cross University,
Lismore 2480, NSW, Australia
e-mail: ricardo.vasquez.padilla@scu.edu.au
and Engineering,
Southern Cross University,
Lismore 2480, NSW, Australia
e-mail: ricardo.vasquez.padilla@scu.edu.au
Andrew Beath
Jin-Soo Kim
Marco E. Sanjuan
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: msanjuan@uninorte.edu.co
Universidad del Norte,
Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
e-mail: msanjuan@uninorte.edu.co
Contributed by the Solar Energy Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING: INCLUDING WIND ENERGY AND BUILDING ENERGY CONSERVATION. Manuscript received July 24, 2017; final manuscript received December 19, 2017; published online March 13, 2018. Assoc. Editor: Marc Röger.
J. Sol. Energy Eng. Jun 2018, 140(3): 031010 (17 pages)
Published Online: March 13, 2018
Article history
Received:
July 24, 2017
Revised:
December 19, 2017
Citation
García, J., Chean Soo Too, Y., Vasquez Padilla, R., Beath, A., Kim, J., and Sanjuan, M. E. (March 13, 2018). "Multivariable Closed Control Loop Methodology for Heliostat Aiming Manipulation in Solar Central Receiver Systems." ASME. J. Sol. Energy Eng. June 2018; 140(3): 031010. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4039255
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