Solar Furnace Scifair Projects

Solar Furnace

What is a solar furnace? It is a devise that is used to collect, magnify and utilize the heat of the sun.

Solar House Experiments Kit	EDU 8405 Solar Power Science Kit	Windmill Science Fair Projects	SCG-125 Snap Circuits Green Alternative Energy
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Objectives/Goals

The initial impetus for this project was to see if a solar furnace could generate temperatures hot enough to make glass, and to determine how different factors affect the maximum temperature.

In the Jamestown Colony in Virginia the early colonists made a business of glassmaking because the materials were available to make it, including vast quantities of firewood needed to generate the necessary heat. I was wondering whether 400 years ago the colonists could have used sunlight to generate enough heat to make glass, thereby saving the Virginia forests.

Methods/Materials

1. A parabolic mirror was made using a satalite dish with mirrored mylar.
2. This was used to focus sunlight and artificial light on a target under a series of different conditions.
3. Multiple tests were performed to see the effect of the angle of the sun, insulation, and the size of the mirror.

Results

Due to cloudy weather over several weeks, only a small number of tests could be made using sunlight, and an #artificial sun# was created using spotlights indoors. Despite this difficulty, the testing showed that increasing the area of the parabolic reflector increased the temperature of the target. Maximum temperatures were achieved when the sun was closest to directly overhead, near noon. Insulating the target increased the maximum temperature which was achieved. Even in winter, and without insulating the target, temperatures hot enough to melt aluminum (600°C) and steel (1000°C ) were achieved.

Conclusions/Discussion

This experiment suggests that on a summer day with much more insulation of the target, it should be possible to melt glass (1,500°C) with a solar furnace like this, even using the materials available 400 years ago. 3rd party contributor