Wind Action Effects on Heliostat – CFD and FEM Study

Abstract Heliostats account for 45% of the total cost of a solar power tower, so optimizing their structural is critical to overall plant viability. Static wind charging of heliostats, as well as forces and moments applied by steady wind in any weather, has a high impact on the heliostat components design. For the reason that wind tunnel testing is expensive and the profile of flow field is difficult to obtain, numerical wind tunnel was used to study the wind load of the heliostat by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method and a (FEM) method. A 3D simulation has been performed for the Algerian climate, to evaluate this effect at different configurations of the heliostat. This paper provides details about the mesh generation method applied to complex projects under different working conditions. The effects of wind direction, azimuth and elevation angles on the wind pressure distribution are summarized. The coefficients of drag, lift and moment under diverse operating conditions were calculated. The CFD models of the wind around the heliostat are validated to the theoretical and experimental data.