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Maturity
This invention allow flat mirror elements to be easily fabricated and efficiently packaged and shipped to field sites and assembled into the parabolic trough concentrators with potentially substantial costs reductions compared with conventional methods. The mirror is formed from a thin flat very flexible metal sheet with a highly reflective surface. Attached to the rear surface of the mirror sheet is a backbone band whose figure is optimized to form the reflective sheet into a precision parabola when its two ends are pulled toward each other.
Benefits
A factor of 10 improvements in the performance of optimized band compared to a simple rectangular band easy to fabricate and cost-effective
Further information
Content organisation
Date of release