HIGH TEMPERATURE ISSUES FOR POLYMER-BASED SOLAR THERMAL SYSTEMS

摘要

Use of polymer technology for solar thermal systems is perhaps the best strategy to achieve radical cost reduction. However, polymer materials durability is a key barrier to polymer-based systems, including affect of high temperatures. It is shown that stagnation temperatures in glazed flat plate collectors will rapidly degrade or melt commodity plastics, and overheat protection (OHP) must be employed. Normal operation and stagnation temperature frequency distributions are given, as needed for creep and other analyses. It is shown that venting-type OHP can reduce temperatures of the occasional stagnation events to below 100°C, which could allow successful commodity-plastics-based solar thermal.