In-situ prediction of focal flux distribution for concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) system using inverse heat transfer technique for effective design of receiver

The forward problem is solved using Finite Element Method in Ansys APDL. The unknown parameters of the assumed heat flux distribution are then estimated by minimizing the sum of squared error between measured and simulated temperature distribution. A deterministic search technique, Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is used to solve the inverse problem. The simulated temperature distribution with the predicted heat flux are in good agreement with the measured temperature with a maximum residue of ±5 °C. Also, the deviation between theoretical and predicted total solar energy is found to be <6%.