This paper addresses the constructal solution to the fundamental problem of how to collect and drain to one point the current (heat, electrical, etc.) generated volumetrically in a low conductivity volume of a given size through channels of high conductivity material. The amount of high conductivity material available for the collector grid is in finite amount and the current generation rate is also constant. The constructal solution is build in incremental order, from an elemental, optimized cell to higher and higher order optimized assemblies. It is shown the collector grid has a tree-like structure. The example reported in this paper deals with the electrical, constructal optimization of photovoltaic cells, but it is shown that this new theory has far reaching implications in physics, mathematics, biology, environmental problems and contributes to explaining the self-structuring principle that is met in nature.
展开▼
