Conceptual design and construction of an original scale parabolic trough collector made of high-performance concrete

Conceptual design and construction of an original scale parabolic trough collector made of high-performance concrete. Parabolic troughs are the most mature technology of concentrated solar power (CSP) which focuses the direct solar radiation onto line-like absorbers. In a downstream power block electricity is generated. Up to now, parabolic trough collectors mostly consist of steel frameworks supporting mirror elements pointwise. A small-scale shell solar concrete prototype made of high-performance concrete with a novel rocker bearing has already been built [3]. It merges supporting structure and reflecting surface. In the project ConSol (“Concrete Solar Collector”), this conceptual design was adapted by a consortium led by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Further, it was developed to a holistically optimised parabolic shell collector for full scale parabolic troughs with an aperture width of 5.77 m and a total length of 24 m. Therefore, a slender shell of only 4.5 cm on average was optimized with respect to deformation demands that tracks the sun by means of sickle shaped rocker bearings. Tilting or slipping is avoided due to concrete gears. A specially developed drive system with chain connectors and a power unit of only 180 W enables the movement of the collector. A qualification of the optical efficiency is performed by means of digital close range photogrammetry. © 2019, Ernst und Sohn. All rights reserved.