Structural Design of Heliostat for Solar Thermal Power Plant

Abstract

It is evident from recent developments that world is shifting from fossil fuels to renewable resources for clean energy production. Among these renewable technologies, solar is most predicted and consistent source of energy. Power plants based on solar thermal technologies are increasing. Solar thermal power plants are efficient and clean replacement of fossil fuel power plants. In this paper Heliostat structure is designed for 50MW solar thermal plant. Firstly three variants of Heliostat structure are designed using CAD software. Variation is carried out in different parts. CAE model is developed for all structures and simulations are carried out. Post processing of the results is done and deformation is calculated. A comparison of all these structure is carried out and the structure which shows minimum deformation and greater rigidity is finalized.