Transmission performances of solar windows exposed to concentrated sunlight

To investigate the transmission performances of solar windows subjected to concentrated sunlight, an integrated sunlight transferring model was built, which was formed by a dish and a curved surface window. Considering the dish performances and the window materials, the transmissivity of the windows was predicted by the Monte Carlo ray-tracing method (MCRTM). The results show that the transmissivity of the quartz glass window is about 12.0% higher than that of the sapphire window because the refractive index and the absorption coefficient of the quartz glass is lower than that of the sapphire. For a combined dish and window system, the influences of the window geometries on the transmissivity are negligible. However, decreasing the slope errors and tracking errors of the dish is able to improve the transmission performances of the windows.