Software for optical simulation solar receiver modeling

Short description

The Tonatiuh project aims to create an open source, cutting-edge, accurate, and easy to use Monte Carlo ray tracer for the optical simulation of solar concentrating systems. It intends to advance the state-of-the-art of the simulation tools available for the design and analysis of solar concentrating systems, and to make those tools freely available to anyone interested in using and improving them.

The development of this software tool is being led by the National Renewable Energy Centre of Spain (CENER) to assist in the design and analysis of solar concentrating systems and in the exploration of new concepts.

Some of the most relevant design goals of Tonatiuh are:

To develop a robust theoretical foundation that will facilitate the optical simulation of almost any type of solar concentrating systems.
To exhibit a clean and flexible software architecture, that will allow the user to adapt, expand, increase, and modify its functionalities with ease.
To achieve operating system independence at source level, and run on all major platforms with none, or minor, modifications to its source code.

The most relevant references are the following:

Blanco, M., Mutuberria, A., Monreal, A., & Albert, R. (2011). Results of the empirical validation of Tonatiuh at Mini-Pegase CNRS-PROMES facility. Proc SolarPACES.
Blanco, M. J., Mutuberria, A., & Martinez, D. (2010). Experimental validation of Tonatiuh using the Plataforma Solar de Almería secondary concentrator test campaign data. In 16th annual SolarPACES symposium.
Blanco, M. J., Mutuberria, A., Garcia, P., Gastesi, R., & Martin, V. (2009). Preliminary validation of Tonatiuh SOLARPACES Symposium. Berlin, Germany.
Blanco, M. J., Amieva, J. M., & Mancillas, A. (2005, January). The Tonatiuh Software Development Project: An open source approach to the simulation of solar concentrating systems. In ASME 2005 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (pp. 157-164). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

More information available at its website following this link: https://github.com/iat-cener/tonatiuh

Main technical features

Monte Carlo ray tracer
CPU parallelized
Easy-to-use graphical user interface with a 3D and tree views
Several sunlight models
Many surface shapes and material properties
Capability to import surface geometries from CAD format
Fast heliostat field maker
Tool for calculating flux distributions onto surfaces
Available for Windos and Linux OS

Innovative aspects

The most relevant features that distinguish Tonatiuh from other ray tracers are the free-to-use and easy-to-use that Tonatiuh provides. Also the newest improvements are the capability to import surfaces from CAD and the flux distribution calculator.

Applications

Software for optical analysis of concentrating solar systems.

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Type of partner sought

Research organizations,Companies

Tasks to be performed by the partner you are looking for.

We are looking for companies wishing to analyze optical performance of optical systems.