- #1
Thundagere
- 159
- 0
If I keep this up, I'm going to get a rep around here :).
So, I recently acquired a fiberglass satellite dish which I plan to use for building a cheap, solar powered distillation machine. The idea is to have the dish, calculate the focal point, and run a double glass plated chamber at the focal point. THis allows light in, let's it get heated, then retains the heat long enough for it to boil. Keep in mind, as a high school freshman, this is partially for fun, but I might enter it in a science fair. I want this to be as resourceful and documented as possible.
So, here's the real question. I'm thinking of either a) Taking an acrilyc plexiglass mirror and placing it on the fiberglass dish, then putting it in an oven and molding it into the parabolic shape, or
b) Gluing on hundreds of small mirrors.
I want to know, would the first idea work or would the mirror get too warped and make light go through diffiuse reflection, or would it still be specular? Which method would be best for my project of boiling water?
With the amount of water I have, I need about 298000 J. The sun gives off about 1000 W/m^2, I believe (a bit more, but I'm averagin and including nightfall). That's just background info, but what do you guys think?
So, I recently acquired a fiberglass satellite dish which I plan to use for building a cheap, solar powered distillation machine. The idea is to have the dish, calculate the focal point, and run a double glass plated chamber at the focal point. THis allows light in, let's it get heated, then retains the heat long enough for it to boil. Keep in mind, as a high school freshman, this is partially for fun, but I might enter it in a science fair. I want this to be as resourceful and documented as possible.
So, here's the real question. I'm thinking of either a) Taking an acrilyc plexiglass mirror and placing it on the fiberglass dish, then putting it in an oven and molding it into the parabolic shape, or
b) Gluing on hundreds of small mirrors.
I want to know, would the first idea work or would the mirror get too warped and make light go through diffiuse reflection, or would it still be specular? Which method would be best for my project of boiling water?
With the amount of water I have, I need about 298000 J. The sun gives off about 1000 W/m^2, I believe (a bit more, but I'm averagin and including nightfall). That's just background info, but what do you guys think?
