Solar radiation model (details)

FranciscoRamirez

Hello!

I'm doing this tutorial: ACU-T: 3201 Solar Radiation and Thermal Shell Tutorial (https://help.altair.com/hwcfdsolvers/acusolve/topics/tutorials/acu/acu_3201_intro_hm_r.htm#acu_3201_intro_hm_r). However, I don't understand the output of the AcuSolve Command Prompt:

<span class="keyword cmdname">acuSflux -time "dec-3-2019 11:00:00" -tinc 1800 -nts 25 -lat 42.6064 -lon -83.1498 -ndir "1,0,0" -udir "0,0,1"</span>

where the output is this:

Here are my questions:

1. What does each column mean?
2. What database or what model is used to obtain this solar data?
3. Does the solar data take clouds or another weather event into account?
4. Where I can find a theory manual indicating the solar radiation model implemented in HyperWorks CFD?

 

Best regards,

Francisco,

 

 

 

acupro

If you issue

acuSflux -h

you will see what the various entries to the command indicate.

1 - You end with four columns in the resulting data file - time in seconds, X/Y/Z components of solar flux (the solar flux vector - input to the SOLAR_RADIATION command, with type = linear)

2 - Algorithm used in this program is a combination of 
standard solar position:
altitude/pressure relationship of mid summer tables
clear sky radiation model
report (SERI/TR-215-2436)
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/spectral/model/

Gettotal direct solar irradiation
Extracted from spetral2
code:   http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/spectral/
theory: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/pubs/spectral/model/

3 - This all assumes clear sky, no historical weather data

4 - We only have the information in item 2 above