ing at the economic and optical performances of the compound parabolic concentrator (CPC), the CPC structural design is optimized. According to the parameter equation, the effect of the intercept ratio for the same area on the total CPC arc length and the number of receiving tubes is analyzed. The research results show that an intercept ratio value of 0.15-0.25 for CPC can effectively reduce the use of CPC arc surface material. Based on the Tracepro software, two-dimensional ray tracing of CPC is implemented, and a simulation and calculation method for the direct optical efficiency of CPC is proposed. Four seasonal dates, January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1, are selected as the simulation dates. The simulation results show that the average direct optical efficiencies of CPC with an interception ratio of 0.16 are 13.77%, 15.24%, 9.30% and 11.54% higher than those of CPC with an interception ratio of 0.56, respectively. The increase of solar altitude angle and the decrease of azimuth angle are both helpful to reduce the end ray loss of CPC. The increase of the CPC length is helpful to reduce the effect of terminal light loss on CPC optical efficiency. The experimental results confirm the correctness of the simulation ones. The proposed method can be applied to the optimization design of a CPC structure for the improvement of optical performances.