Structural design criteria for steel components of parabolic-trough solar concentrators

Starting from the R&D experience acquired, within the Italian context, in the field of the development of new technologies for solar energy exploitation, structural design criteria have been selected here to define a guideline for steel structures design and assessment of components of parabolic-trough solar concentrators. The main codes of practice used in Italy and in the European community have been considered and design criteria chosen to find a compromise between requirements of rules that should be followed precisely and costs. Loads, actions, and more generally, the whole design procedure has been considered in agreement with the limit state method; a new approach is critically and carefully proposed to use this method in designing and testing special structures, such as the one analyzed here (e.g., wind and snow actions are evaluated and newly interpreted according to both the angular position of the collectors and the characteristic effects). A method for evaluating variable loads is proposed to integrate current Italian and European rules, and a dimensional reduction for some elements due to the limit state design approach is underlined.