Numerical study of wind load on heliostat (Q959581)

Summary: The Heliostat array accounts for about 40\% of the Solar Power Tower plant's total costs. Reducing of wind loads on the heliostat is of great significance. The purpose of this study was to develop an effective way of evaluating the wind load on a heliostat by numerical simulation. Comparison of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) result with the wind tunnel experiment data were carried out which showed they matched not very well. Detailed checking of the experimental report showed there were some errors with the wind tunnel testing. The conclusion is that CFD is a useful tool in heliostat design.