Flowline Method in Nonimaging Designs
Ángel García Botella, Roland Winston, Lun Jiang · 2023
The flowline design method was a crucial step forward in the comprehension of D→: It provides a simple and direct tool to design perfect optical devices, clearly overcoming the raytracing paradigm and showing the intimate relation between D→ and radiation energy transfer. The flowline method has been used to study the three-dimensional compound parabolic concentrator as a component originating from the light field produced by a Lambertian emitter in the form of a 2D truncated wedge, but a 2D truncated wedge can produce other new concentrators by considering multiple reflections. A key point in solving one physical field problem is finding an appropriate coordinate system that fits the geometry of the problem. In fact the optimum way to solve a particular field theory problem is to develop a coordinate system that fits the particular geometry.