CATENARY SOLAR REFLECTOR

HOME ADVANTAGE MATHEMATICS  DESIGNS REAL USES GOALS-N-THANGS ABOUT ME

There are thousands of reflectors designs out there. Why bother with a catenary profile?

Very simple: it is probably the cheapest method per area for collecting and focusing solar energy.

Because the shape of the curve is self-forming, there is little need for maintaining the integrity of the shape.

Instead of having to buy sheet metal and form it into a complex shape, then build a structure to maintain that shape rigid, the catenary reflector only require the simplest of the external frame and a piece of flexible reflecting material. Even a common sheet of plastic with one silvery side will do the job. For most of my prototypes, common aluminum foil glued to wood and cardboard does the job. For industrial, large-dimension operations, thin bright finished stainless steel sheet can do the job.

It is, in fact, can be CHEAPER THAN A FLAT MIRROR IN USE.

Everything, if allowed, will sag (insert old age joke here). If it's flexible enough, it will sag into the catenary shape. To keep a mirror flat, it will take a great deal of supporting structure to resist the forces of natutre. To keep a catenary reflector in its preferred shape, all you need to do is "let it hang." I joke to my friends that this concept is very Zen like. if the wind blows, it will deform the mirror temporarily, but when the wind stops, it returns to it original shape. By conforming instead of resisting external forces, its simplicity is its elegance.

The main resource worry for the catenary is no longer "how big of a reflector can I afford to build," but "how big of a piece of ground can I dedicate to this project."

The typical commercial photovoltaic panel is about 50$ per square foot. A typical parabolic mirror would probably be about 10$ per square foot. A typical catenary reflector? We're talking pennies per square foot--maybe fraction of a penny.

I feel that the concept is very scalable from personal use to industrial scale for manufacturing or residential purposes. The smallest reflector, using a few square meters of a tarp-like sheet for cooking and boiling water in developing regions can be made with local resources, packed and moved in minutes. On the other scale of the spectrum, the larger reflectors made by hanging sheets of stainless steel can focus solar energy to drive hot-air motors or heat exchanger for providing industrial heating or electricity.

Because this concept is a reflector that can concentrate sun light, it can raise the temperature of the target to a high level, making use of the fact that Carnot efficiency (the theoretical limit of heat engines) is much higher when the top temperature of the device is higher with respect to the bottom temperature, i.e., large delta T. Perhaps the only cheaper method of using solar energy would be limited to the low-grade heat uses such as home water heating, but because of the inability to focus energy, their utitilty is limited to low level heating applications.

Visit the design pages for more details and ideas.