Abstract—V-Trough concentrating devices with tracking strategies are considered to be a simple and low-cost approach to increase the solar harvesting area of photovoltaic energy conversion systems. Seeking to support the design and exploration of these devices, this work presents the development and exploration of the software “VTDesign”. The software was developed to guide a designer through the process of defining the geometrical parameters of a solar V-Trough based on the analytical assessment of direct radiation. VTDesign allows the user to rapidly iterate and compare diverse alternatives by means of a cost-effectiveness analysis and the visualization of the optical performance and geometrical representations. The capacities of the software in terms of interactive design are explored in a case study

Index Terms—Energy conversion system, geometrical optics, interactive software, solar V-Trough

Design Engineering Research Group (GRID). Universidad EAFIT, Cra. 49 N. 7 Sur 50, Medellín, Colombia

Cite:Andrés Arias-Rosales*, Ricardo Mejía-Gutiérrez, "VTDesign: Implementation of a Direct Radiation Model in an Interactive Software for Designing V-Trough Photovoltaic Devices," International Journal of Computer and Electrical Engineering vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 288-293, 2016.

vol8/936-M016.pdf