A high intensity solar facility for simulating thermal nuclear environments

The ability of a tilted array of toroidally contoured, equatorially mounted heliostats to provide extremely high radiant energy concentrations is investigated. The US Army´s White Sands Missile Range requires flux densities of 300 cal/cm²-s (12.6 MW/m² ) over a 1/2 m² area for the purposes of simulating the thermal effects of a nuclear event. A computer simulation was used to measure the effect of selected parameters on array performance. Three array configurations were then defined and their performances evaluated. The highest flux density profile has a peak value of 425 cal/cm² -sec (17.9 MW/m²). The target area covered by a flux of at least 300 cal/cm²-sec is slightly greater than 1/2 m² . This flux profile was produced by an array optimized for noon on the winter solstice using 26000 m² of heliostat area