Adding a new parabolic trough to the collector library

Hello everybody,

is there a way to define a new parabolic trough with its geometry and its optical properties to the standard library ? If yes, how to ?

I read the document www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/51825.pdf , but I wonder how to get the data into the right format to add it to the library ?

How does the data set for a listed trough looks like, and how has the data set to be included to allow afterwards a choice in the drop down menue under "collectors" ?

Thanks for your answers !

Kind regards,
Marc

You can use the library editor to add a new collector to the library. On the File menu, click Libraries, and then click Help for instructions on how to work with the library. The library editor is a little tricky to work with so please let me know if you get stuck or have questions about it.

Hello Paul !

Thanks for your kind help!

As you created a tool one can operate pretty intuitively, it was pretty easy to add new collector data to the library.

I wondered about the three coefficients for the incident angle modifier, for they are all the same for all collectors in the standard library. If I understood the paper from Mr. Dudley (1994)correctly, these coefficients were aquired from experimental data, so I suppose they should vary with a different geometry ?

Kind Regards,
Marc

Hi Marc,

The default incident angle modifier coefficients are from the test data published in Dudley 1994 for the SEGS LS2 collectors. As you suggest, the coefficients should be different for a different collector. However, published data is not available for the other collectors, so SAM uses the LS2 coefficients as default values for all of the collectors in the default library. Those values are better than not the modeling incident angle effect at all.

Ideally, you would model a collector in SAM with IAM coefficients provided by the collector manufacturer or supplier.

Best regards,
Paul.