The National Solar Thermal Testing Facility uses the power of the sun to create extreme combined thermal environments for advanced thermal research and testing.
One-of-a-Kind Facility
The National Solar Thermal Test Facility’s extreme environments complex is at the forefront of innovation, providing critical insights and solutions for the solar energy industry. We use the sun to simulate a range of high temperatures, extreme solar flux levels, and varying pressure or vacuum environments, allowing us to develop and validate thermal technologies under the most demanding conditions.
Extreme Sites
The NSTTF solar furnace uses a heliostat to reflect the suns light off a concentrator dish. This provides a renewable source which is capable of a wide range of high flux test scenarios, thermal model validation tools, and extreme environments. To protect equipment, this dish is in a fixed configuration inside an open-sided building. A heliostat reflects the sun through an attenuator to control the amount of solar flux on target.
Current features and capabilities:
- Peak irradiance of 600 W/cm2
- Max Temperatures near 3000 ⁰C
- Spot Size: 5 cm or 3 in
- 300 psig solar reactor for gas distribution
- 1 torr vacuum solar reactor
- 50K frame rate UHF camera system
- FTIR photometrics for onboard spectroscopy
- FLIR Camera (-20°c to 2000°c)
- Up to 32 thermocouples
- 12 channels for voltage and Current measuring
- Programmable Flux profiles via attenuator
Our solar simulator is a one-of-a-kind, high-flux solar simulator with an Automated Sample Handling and Exposure System (ASHES), providing accelerated lifetime aging tests for materials under high-temperature/high-flux conditions. A robotic sample-handling system can be used to move multiple coupons automatically into and out of the concentrated flux sequentially to expose the samples to predetermined temperatures, fluxes, and/or durations.
Current features and capabilities:
- Peak irradiance is ~1.1 MW/m2 of 130 W/cm2
- Average irradiance of ~0.9 MW/m2 over a spot size of ~1 inch (2.5 cm)
- Spot Size: 2.5 cm
- 24/7 operation available
- Programmable Sample System (ASHES)
A new vertical simulator also is in development to reach 500 w/cm2.
Our 36 ft. diameter dishes each produce 75kW thermal power and peak fluxes up to 1500 W/cm2. They are individually controlled to track to sun with 2 axis control.
The NSTTF Solar Tower has a 0.3 Mach blow-down wind tunnel with a variable frequency drive capable of flow modulation, used to hold test articles during experimentation. The system contains a test panel, comprised of an aluminum 6061-T6 alloy, which was developed to hold multiple coupons of refractory sheet low expansion insulation squares that include two high speed and slow speed flux gauges. The wind tunnel utilizes air or nitrogen gas as the working fluid, where the flow progresses from east to west within the test section, with a standoff between the coupon and the wind tunnel inlet. Additionally, the system comprises two sets of large shutters to facilitate flux pulsed experimentation down to 0.1 sec pulse widths. The test section includes a quartz glass to allow flow which can be monitored real-time. The experimental test panel includes RSLE insulation tiles with high-speed flux gauges and a temperature-compensated radiometer to characterize the Gaussian flux profiles incident during each respective test exposure.
Work with us
We partner with large and small businesses, universities, and government agencies. With multiple agreement types to select from, partners can access world-class science, engineering, experts, and infrastructure.
Contact
Robert Keene, National Solar Thermal Test Facility manager
rskeene@sandia.gov