As the need for clean renewable energy continues to grow, more attention is being focused on the development of more efficient solar energy collection systems. LightTools includes specialized utilities to help designers model and analyze solar collection systems.
This utility allows users to simulate and analyze the performance of a solar collection system. Features of this utility include:
This utility allows users to create several types of compound concentrators which are sometimes used in solar collectors, including:
This new utility supports numerous variations of these fundamental forms. Users can input specific geometric values to define the concentrator (i.e., input diameter, output diameter, etc.) and can indicate if a cubic spline or a Bezier polynomial should be used to fit a specific number of profile points to define the cross sectional profile of the element. The macro uses these inputs to build the concentrator using a LightTools skinned solid.
LightTools features and benefits for solar optics design