An algorithm and a flexible Fortran code for the computation of solar energy reception on a curved surface. (December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Farhadi, Rouhollah; Taki, Morteza; Abdanan Mehdizadeh, Saman
• Is Part Of: Sustainable energy technologies and assessments. Volume 42(2021)
• Publication Date: 2020-12
• Subjects: Curved surface -- Fortran -- Energy gain -- Solar energy -- Solar collector; Renewable energy sources -- Periodicals; Energy development -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; Electric power production -- Periodicals; Energy storage -- Periodicals; 333.79
• DOI: 10.1016/j.seta.2020.100883
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2213-1388

Abstract

Highlights: Spherical coordinate was set for computing solar radiation on curved surfaces. Curved surfaces were meshed using spherical coordinate. A Fortran code was presented for computing solar radiation on a curved surface. The Fortran code is flexible to apply any surface function and radiation model. The Fortran code was faster than ANSYS-Fluent. The results of the Fortran code were close to analytical and experimental results. Abstract: The increasing applications of solar energy have led to the development of various solar collectors with complex geometries. Conventional methods cannot directly calculate the solar radiation on such surfaces. This research is aimed to develop a method and a computer code (Fortran) to determine solar energy reception on curved surfaces. The presented method can be flexibly applied to any surface function and the solar radiation model. The method is based on dividing a curved surface into a large number of small flat elements and computing the solar radiation on each of these elements, which will be finally summed to attain the total radiation. The results of the presented method were compared with an analytical method for a cylindrical surface, which showed excellent accuracy (relative error of 0.0042%). The results were also evaluated by ANSYS-Fluent commercial software with two different geometries (a hemisphere and paraboloid). The relative difference between the Fortran code and ANSYS-Fluent results was 0.85 and 4.43% for the hemisphere and paraboloid, respectively. Moreover, the results were compared with an experimental test on a semi-spherical solar collector, which indicated the relative error of 0.13%. The developed Fortran code for the algorithm can be easily converted to other programming languages.