Line-concentrating Flux Analysis of 42kWe High-flux Solar Simulator

High-flux solar simulatorscan provide controlled conditions and allow conducting high-temperature solar-driven thermal and thermochemical research without perturbations due to solar resource intermittency. A 42-kWe high-flux solar simulator, KIRAN-42, with seven hexagonal symmetry reflectors has been built at IMDEA Energy Institute, Spain. The reflectors layout of KIRAN-42 provides sufficient separation of units and it is conceived flexible enough to adjust the flux distribution onto the focal plane, which has expanded the application field of the high-flux solar simulator significantly. A model was built with Tracepro© to analyze the optical characterization of line-concentrating flux distribution of KIRAN-42, and the results show that, in spite of the spreading of lamps foci onto a line, thepeak flux is still reaching 1.4 MW/m2. Experimental characterizations were also conducted to study the real flux distribution of KIRAN-42 with line-concentrating, of which the peak flux is about 1 MW/m2. Divergence between experimental results and Tracepro©model should still be improved though the optical characterization of KIRAN-42 confirms the potential use of the solar simulator in a flexible way for different aiming strategies.