Frensel Lens Stirling Engine

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etodds
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:40 pm
First Name: Todd
Last Name: Slaughter

Frensel Lens Stirling Engine

Post by etodds »

I have heard of companies developing Stirling engines using a
parabolic mirrors to solar power Stirling engines. Has anyone heard
of research using Frensel Lenses? I would think you could get a
smaller footprint design with this method.
rtopf
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Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2002 6:49 am
First Name: Richard
Last Name: Topf

Response to Frensel Lens Stirling Engine

Post by rtopf »

Todd,

The commercial developments I am aware of are 10-25 Kw parabolic dish systems that use dishes 8 or more meters in diameter. They are usually made up of smaller facets arranged on a metal frame. This way, each facet is relatively thin. The focal point is in front of the mirrors, so the structure does not block the sunlight.

A Fresnel lens would need to be of similar diameter. It would be very difficult to support a thin lens of this size without obscuring much of the light.

Rick
dbarnettaz
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Joined: Sun May 20, 2007 5:33 pm
First Name: Don
Last Name: Barnett

Response to Frensel Lens Stirling Engine

Post by dbarnettaz »

Back in school we built a solar metal cutter using Fresnel lenses. A problem arises when you try to go too large with such a lens because the incoming light must be perpendicular to the plane of the lens. With some of the high-powered units being the ultimate goal (25 kW & up) getting the concentration ratio of the concentrator to be in the range of g.t. 2000:1 is problematic with most Fresnel lenses. The parabolic concentrators used now at Sandia are fairly long focal length jobs. The Fresnel lenses are not long focal length, and as such getting a lot of them on target will be an issue.
Don
moreshkokane
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First Name: Moresh
Last Name: Kokane

Response to Frensel Lens Stirling Engine

Post by moreshkokane »

We at NewPower India have developed a technique to manufacture large
Fresnel concentrators. There are number of Optical challenges involved,
which cause issues in this design. Try doing a google for nonoptical
fresnel solar thermal collectors. Number of research papers by a
Japanese guy which explains in detail the issues involved.
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