User's guide to HELIOS: a computer program for modeling the optical behavior of reflecting solar concentrators. Part I. Introduction and code input

HELIOS is a flexible computer code for evaluating designs for central-receiver, parabolic-dish, and other reflecting solar-energy collector systems, for safety calculations on the threat to personnel and to the facility itself, for determination of how various input parameters alter the power collected, for design trade-offs, and for heliostat evaluations. Input variables include atmospheric transmission effects, reflector shape and surface errors, suntracking errors, focusing and alignment strategies, receiver design, placement positions of the tower and mirrors, and time of day and day of the year for the calculation. Complete input instructions and a description of the code structure are given. The Code is in use at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque (SNLA) on CDC 6600, CYBER 76, and CDC 7600 computers.