Tonatiuh release 1.2.6 is now available!

[Manuel J. Blanco]

Dear Tonatiuh users,

We released few days ago the new version of Tonatiuh. This new release incorporates very interesting features to facilitate:

a) The modeling of heliostat fields, and thereby, the modeling of solar tower systems.

b) The testing of different atmospheric transmittance models

c) The ray casting process, allowing the users to select the objects that should be taken into account during that process

You can find more information about the features of this new version of Tonatiuh at the main page of the Tonatiuh website.

Thanks for using Tonatiuh and for supporting its development with your comments, suggestions, and questions.

[sofiasal...@gmail.com]

Dear Mr. Blanco,

I am studying a MSc in solar thermal energy and I need urgently to do a work related with a CSP plant. I was told to use soltrace, but now I see that this software is more interesting. What I need now is the heliostats coordinates of whichever existing plant or project. I wonder if you can help me with a website where I can fin those.
Thank you very much for your help.

Kind regards

Sofía Salazar

[Manuel J. Blanco]

Dear Sofia,

In the literature there are several papers that provide description of heliostat fields for solar tower plants. Two years ago, for instance, the following paper was published in the Solar Energy international journal, that provides information regarding how to generate heliostat fields, and also includes references to previous articles in the subject: 

"Heliostat Field Optimization: A New Computationally E cient Model and Biomimetic Layout". Corey J. Noone (MIT), Manuel Torrilhon (RWTH) and Alexander Mitsos (MIT,*) Department of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

If you do an Internet search  you may find PDF copies of such article. Also you can get it from the Solar Energy journal. I found a copy of the article, most likely the author's draft, at the following link: http://www.mathcces.rwth-aachen.de/torrilhon/NooneTorrilhonMitsos_SolEner2012.pdf

Furthermore, you may also want to explore the simulation capabilities for solar tower systems of NREL's Solar Advisor Model (SAM).

I hope the above information is of help.

Best regards,

[pwi...@gmail.com]

Dear Dr Blanco

I have been using Tonatiuh for a while and I already got some contour plots for the solar trough collectors that I am trying to model. I use R to visualise.
The problem is that my trough is 10 m long and the contour plot gets visualised over a large area and the focussed line is too thin in the contour. I used the same method mentioned by you in R to visualise the results. Could you please tell me if there is a way to somehow ZOOM in to the contour plot .  I have attached the code as well as a snapshot of my actual graph. Could you please help me.

Code:

filled.contour( h2d$x, h2d$y, fluxMatrix, levels=c(0, 0.1, 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600, 1800, 2000, 2200 ), color= rich.colors )

[Sasa Pavlovic]

I want to apply Tonatiuh software, to simulate my optical parabolic solar concentrator. 

I want to calculating flux of radiation-absorber in the focus of my parabolic concentrator

how can I import my geometrical model of parabolic dish solar concentrator

I have modelled system in SolidWorks CAD package.

Thank you very much Sir.

Sincerely, 

SASA

[Umamaheswararao Gaddala]

sir i am new to tonatiuh ray tracing software. plz help me to find introduction

and learning  tutorials of tonatiuh