Study of paraboloidal optical concentrator by ray-tracing method: Results

Abstract

This paper presents results obtained by using a software tool (Ray-Tracer), which we developed in order to simulate small size paraboloidal concentrator. The simulations were carried out for the days corresponding to equinox and solstice moments. For the interval between the winter solstice and summer solstice, we computed the optical concentration factors, the averaged optical concentration and the averaged optical efficiency. We found that the optical efficiency is maximal in March and it is minimal in December and June. All these results are in agreement with results reported in literature illustrating the fact that the proposed software tool is competitive.