31 August 2020 Design of a multibeam solar laser station for a megawatt solar furnace
Hugo Costa, Joana Almeida, Dawei Liang, Dário Garcia, Miguel Catela, Bruno D. Tibúrcio, Cláudia R. Vistas
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Abstract

A multirod solar side-pumping concept is proposed to study the feasibility of multirod/multibeam laser systems in large-sized solar furnaces. This scheme was based on the one-megawatt solar furnace (MWSF) in Odeillo, France, which collected and concentrated solar rays into an input face of a solar homogenizer placed at the focal zone. At its output face, 12 laser heads were positioned, each of which was composed of a two-dimensional compound parabolic concentrator that focused the uniform solar radiation from the homogenizer’s output to an Nd:YAG rod mounted inside a fused silica flow tube. Each laser rod was pumped by one-twelfth of the total concentrated solar power transmitted through the homogenizer, ensuring a good thermal performance under highly concentrated solar power. A 22.84-kW total multimode solar laser power, corresponding to 12.48-W  /  m2 collection efficiency and 2.28% solar-to-laser power conversion efficiency, was numerically determined. The latter represents an enhancement of 1.75 times over the previous numerically calculated value for a multirod/multibeam laser scheme based on another one-MWSF near Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

© 2020 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 0091-3286/2020/$28.00 © 2020 SPIE
Hugo Costa, Joana Almeida, Dawei Liang, Dário Garcia, Miguel Catela, Bruno D. Tibúrcio, and Cláudia R. Vistas "Design of a multibeam solar laser station for a megawatt solar furnace," Optical Engineering 59(8), 086103 (31 August 2020). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.59.8.086103
Received: 30 May 2020; Accepted: 18 August 2020; Published: 31 August 2020
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Cited by 8 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Nd:YAG lasers

Solar energy

Rod lasers

Mirrors

Lasers

Optical engineering

Solar radiation

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