NREL / SolarPILOT

SolarPILOT power tower layout and optimization tool
https://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpilot.html
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Flux constraint on multiple receivers #48

Closed mjwagner2 closed 5 years ago

mjwagner2 commented 5 years ago

The optimization routine enforces a maximum allowable flux constraint on the receiver surface. This works as expected for a single receiver, typically ensuring that the max flux constraint isn't significantly violated during optimization.

The maximum flux constraint is not working correctly for multiple receivers, as it only limits flux for the first receiver and allows the remaining receivers to exceed flux. The flux constraint should apply independently to all receivers and take into account the specified max flux limit on each receiver page. The COBYLA algorithm uses a linearized constraint approximation and makes use of estimated slack between the current flux and the flux limit to proceed through iterations.