Abstract
A heliostat is a structure whose function is to reflect sunlight to a target collector. Heliostat vibrations can degrade optical pointing accuracy and fatigue the structural components. This paper reports on an experimental and analytical program with a goal to improve understanding of the response to wind loading on heliostats. A modal test was performed on a heliostat located at the National Solar Thermal Testing Facility (NSTTF) at Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Modal tests were performed with artificial and natural wind excitation. Strain and displacements were also measured under wind loading. The information gained from these tests has been used to evaluate and improve structural models that predict the deformations of the heliostat due to gravitational and dynamic wind loadings. The paper will provide an up-to-date summary of model validation work, evaluation of suitable sensors, and development of data-processing methods for long-term deformation monitoring.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000
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References
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank a number of people from Sandia Labs who made significant contributions to the planning and execution of these tests. Cheryl Ghanbari helped in the early test planning and logistics and helped identify a suitable heliostat for these tests. Ron Briggs performed much of the pretest safety analysis. Ernie Trujillo provided significant support of sensor installation and operation of the heliostat and portable lift. Ron Coleman and David Smallwood suggested methods to produce displacements from acceleration measurements and performed preliminary laboratory assessments. Randy Mayes provided a special version of the SMAC code for OMA identification of the wind excited data sets.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.
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© 2012 The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2012
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Griffith, D.T., Ho, C.K., Hunter, P.S., Sment, J., Moya, A.C., Menicucci, A.R. (2012). Modal Analysis of a Heliostat for Concentrating Solar Power. In: Allemang, R., De Clerck, J., Niezrecki, C., Blough, J. (eds) Topics in Modal Analysis I, Volume 5. Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2425-3_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2425-3_39
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