Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Here comes the sun—A new sunflower-inspired pattern increases concentrated solar efficiency.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/sunflower-concentrated-solar-0111.html[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]Here comes the sun[/font]
[font size=4]A new sunflower-inspired pattern increases concentrated solar efficiency.[/font]
Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
January 11, 2012
[font size=3]Just outside Seville, in the desert region of Andalucia, Spain, sits an oasis-like sight: a 100-meter-high pillar surrounded by rows of giant mirrors rippling outward. More than 600 of these mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, track the sun throughout the day, concentrating its rays on the central tower, where the sun’s heat is converted to electricity — enough to power 6,000 homes.
…
So the MIT team, working with Torrilhon, looked to nature for inspiration — specifically, to the sunflower. The florets of a sunflower are arranged in a spiraling pattern, known as a Fermat spiral, that appears in many natural objects and has long fascinated mathematicians: The ancient Greeks even applied the patterns to buildings and other architectural structures. Mathematicians have found that each sunflower floret is turned at a “golden angle” — about 137 degrees — with respect to its neighboring floret.
The researchers devised a spiral field with its heliostats rearranged to resemble a sunflower, with each mirror angled about 137 degrees relative to its neighbor. The numerically optimized layout takes up 20 percent less space than the PS10 layout. What’s more, the spiral pattern reduced shading and blocking and increased total efficiency compared with PS10’s radially staggered configuration.
Mitsos says arranging a CSP plant in such a spiral pattern could reduce the amount of land and the number of heliostats required to generate an equivalent amount of energy, which could result in significant cost savings. “Concentrated solar thermal energy needs huge areas,” Mitsos says. “If we’re talking about going to 100 percent or even 10 percent renewables, we will need huge areas, so we better use them efficiently.”
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2011.12.007[font size=4]A new sunflower-inspired pattern increases concentrated solar efficiency.[/font]
Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
January 11, 2012
[font size=3]Just outside Seville, in the desert region of Andalucia, Spain, sits an oasis-like sight: a 100-meter-high pillar surrounded by rows of giant mirrors rippling outward. More than 600 of these mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, track the sun throughout the day, concentrating its rays on the central tower, where the sun’s heat is converted to electricity — enough to power 6,000 homes.
…
So the MIT team, working with Torrilhon, looked to nature for inspiration — specifically, to the sunflower. The florets of a sunflower are arranged in a spiraling pattern, known as a Fermat spiral, that appears in many natural objects and has long fascinated mathematicians: The ancient Greeks even applied the patterns to buildings and other architectural structures. Mathematicians have found that each sunflower floret is turned at a “golden angle” — about 137 degrees — with respect to its neighboring floret.
The researchers devised a spiral field with its heliostats rearranged to resemble a sunflower, with each mirror angled about 137 degrees relative to its neighbor. The numerically optimized layout takes up 20 percent less space than the PS10 layout. What’s more, the spiral pattern reduced shading and blocking and increased total efficiency compared with PS10’s radially staggered configuration.
Mitsos says arranging a CSP plant in such a spiral pattern could reduce the amount of land and the number of heliostats required to generate an equivalent amount of energy, which could result in significant cost savings. “Concentrated solar thermal energy needs huge areas,” Mitsos says. “If we’re talking about going to 100 percent or even 10 percent renewables, we will need huge areas, so we better use them efficiently.”
…[/font][/font]
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
