Understanding the impact of wind loads on heliostats is important for concentrating solar power technologies employing solar power towers. The National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) at Sandia National Laboratories is conducting full-field heliostat tests to evaluate and better understand these impacts. Heliostats selected from around the perimeter, center, and in clusters of adjacent units are being instrumented with anemometers. The wind data is synchronized with measurements taken from accelerometers and strain gauges using National Instruments Lab VIEW applications. This paper focuses on wind data collected above a single heliostat for characterization and model validation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of the wind velocity profile above the heliostat show agreement with empirically acquired average wind velocities in two recent experiments.
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