Heuristics for Problems in Heavy Industry

PROJECT NUMBER: 68

AUTHOR: Alexander Mikulich, Physics | MENTOR: Alexandra Newman, Mechanical Engineering

MENTOR: Alexander Zolan, Operations Research and Engineering

ABSTRACT

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Concentrated solar plants offer a promising future in the field of renewable energy, and operate by using a vast array of mirrors to reflect solar rays onto a central receiver. The aimpoint strategy for each heliostat (mirror) varies by plant, but most will aim at the direct center to maximize the thermal flux. On days with intense sunlight, this can surpass the flux limits of the collector, so some heliostats are defocused, i.e., aimed elsewhere, which wastes energy. This project developed alternative aimpoint strategies using computer simulations. An existing, specialized software called SolarPILOT calculates total flux experienced by the receiver based on the aimpoint strategy. This project built small-scale models that determined that, rather than focusing the heliostats on the center, plants should cluster the aimpoints tightly around it so individual points on the receiver were not at risk of overheating. The next step is to more accurately simulate larger fields to ensure these optimized strategies can be applied in industry.

VISUAL PRESENTATION

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

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Alex is a junior engineering physics major, also pursuing a minor in computer science. He is also currently working on a senior design project designing mounts for neutron detectors for an experiment to be conducted at TRIUMF. This summer, Alex will be an intern at NASA working in detection of life in icy environments, although this may fall through due to COVID-19. For future research, Alex is hoping to participate in the quantum computing research at Mines, and will eventually apply to graduate school for engineering.

Sponsored by Phillips 66