Wind loads greatly affect the mechanical performance and tracking accuracy of heliostats. Therefore, the wind load must be accurately known to assure the operational reliability of heliostats. A simple wind load model was developed based on experiments on an actual heliostat rather than a wind...

A strong wind hit Aksaray province in Turkey on the March 12, 2013. In this natural disaster, two masonry minarets collapsed and one minaret slightly damaged. Fortunately, there was no human injured. In this paper, detailed information about the collapse mechanism of the minarets is given with...