Development of a Fresnel lens based high-flux solar simulator

In this paper, a Fresnel lens based high flux solar simulator (HFSS) is developed for concentrating solar power research and high temperature material testing. In this design, each commercially available 7 kWe xenon-arc lamp is coupled with a silicone-on-glass Fresnel lenses as the optical concentrator, and 12 lamp-lens units are distributed in a circular array. In total, the power of the solar simulator can reach 84 kWe. A ray tracing model has been developed based on the real arc-emitter shape and the Fresnel lens optics for predicting the optical performance of the HFSS design. The testing result shows that the ray tracing model can predict the flux distribution on the focal plane accurately but a bit conservative in the center region. The flux distribution on the focal plane appears axisymmetric with a peak flux of 7.22 MW/m2, and 19.7 kW of radiative power in total is delivered on a 280 mm diameter target.