- #1
marellasunny
- 255
- 3
I am currently re-fabricating solar concentrator dishes to allow for automatic tracking of the sun during the day and month. The industry term for these dishes is 'CSP' (Concentrated Solar Power).
Task at hand:
The CSP parabolic dishes are currently manually adjusted to the position of the sun in the sky everyday. We are assigned the task of automating their movement in-order to save on everyday labour. I already have tracker electronics ready with me and am only left with the main task of re-fabricating the mechanism/structure.
Problem:
Automation is achieved using a linear actuator and a prismatic cylinder mechanism placed on either side of the CSP dish swivel bearing lever arm (please see sketch below). The linear actuator pushes and pulls the mechanism and the prismatic cylinder moves accordingly, thereby creating a torque effect on the swivel bearing and rotating the CSP dish as a whole. The problem lies in 'synchronisation'. What if the prismatic cylinder mechanism gets stuck? This would result in breakage of an expensive parabolic dish and can have other disastrous safety consequences.
My solution:
In order to add a redundancy mechanism in case of failure, I have come-up with an idea of using a tension wire pulley arrangement which connects both ends of the lever arm together. I achieve this by welding a clevis on the bottom and top of the dish and connecting the tension wire to them and running it via a pulley. This implies the linear actuator pushing/pulling on the dish would also tighten the tension wire and cause the prismatic cylinder to compress.
I would like to validate my solution further from PF. Please throw out some ideas. I embedded a video also below for a more clear visualisation of the system. The engineers in the video are trying to manually move the dishes by loosening a locknut arrangement both on top and bottom of dish.
Task at hand:
The CSP parabolic dishes are currently manually adjusted to the position of the sun in the sky everyday. We are assigned the task of automating their movement in-order to save on everyday labour. I already have tracker electronics ready with me and am only left with the main task of re-fabricating the mechanism/structure.
Problem:
Automation is achieved using a linear actuator and a prismatic cylinder mechanism placed on either side of the CSP dish swivel bearing lever arm (please see sketch below). The linear actuator pushes and pulls the mechanism and the prismatic cylinder moves accordingly, thereby creating a torque effect on the swivel bearing and rotating the CSP dish as a whole. The problem lies in 'synchronisation'. What if the prismatic cylinder mechanism gets stuck? This would result in breakage of an expensive parabolic dish and can have other disastrous safety consequences.
My solution:
In order to add a redundancy mechanism in case of failure, I have come-up with an idea of using a tension wire pulley arrangement which connects both ends of the lever arm together. I achieve this by welding a clevis on the bottom and top of the dish and connecting the tension wire to them and running it via a pulley. This implies the linear actuator pushing/pulling on the dish would also tighten the tension wire and cause the prismatic cylinder to compress.
I would like to validate my solution further from PF. Please throw out some ideas. I embedded a video also below for a more clear visualisation of the system. The engineers in the video are trying to manually move the dishes by loosening a locknut arrangement both on top and bottom of dish.
