Structural Design and Analysis of the Toroidal Heliostat

Heliostat is an important component in the solar power tower station because its cost, optical performance, and mechanical performance have great influence on the overall property evaluation of the station. The T-shape heliostat tracking the sun in the azimuth-elevation mode has been commonly developed and successfully applied in many stations. In recent years, some researchers have developed spinning-elevation heliostats and have analyzed their optical performance. In this paper, the structure of a $16m2$ toroidal heliostat tracking the sun in the spinning-elevation mode is designed, and the mechanical performance of the structure under wind load is analyzed by means of the finite element method. The trends of force, moments, and vibration modes with the change in elevation have been presented, and the classic status is analyzed in detail when their maximum values occur. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of a toroidal heliostat in reducing the cost are discussed compared with those of a traditional T-shape heliostat.