Patent Grant
8292443
This is a U.S. National Phase Application under 35 U.S.C. 371 of International Application PCT/JP2009/062283, filed on Jul. 6, 2009.
This application claims the priority of Japanese Application No. 2008-176460 filed on Jul. 7, 2008, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to a mirror structure, in particular, to a mirror structure suitable to reflect incident light with high intensity.
Thermal power generation which burns fossil fuel and generates electric power has comparatively low facility cost and the restriction for the installation of an electric power plant is not sever, thermal power generation has been widely used all over the world. Incidentally, the amount of emission of CO2 (carbon dioxide) to cause global warming is increasing continuously every year, therefore, there is the actual circumstances that the reduction of CO2 becomes urgent requirement from a viewpoint of global environment protection. Moreover, since an amount of fossil fuel is limited, fossil fuel should be utilized with saving so as not to be depleted before an energy production technique taking a position of thermal power generation is established. For this reason, although other electric power generating techniques to supplement thermal power generation have been sought, there is a problem that nuclear power generation and hydraulic power generation are hard to be utilized, because the installation of their electric power plants is restricted.
On the other hand, as clean energy which does not give a load to the environment, sunlight energy attracts attention. Generally as a method of changing sunlight into energy, a solar battery has been well known. However, with a current technique, there is the actual circumstance that the electric power generating cost of a solar battery is relatively high in comparison with other plants.
In contrast to this, it has been also considered that sunlight is used directly as energy at relatively low cost. Patent Document 1 discloses a technique that sunlight is condensed and changed into heat energy and the heat energy is converted into electrical power. More concretely, in the technique, sunlight is reflected by a large number of reflecting mirrors (heliostat) arranged a tower and is condensed into a heat exchanging unit by a condensing mirror mounted on the tower so as to heat the heat exchanging unit, and then the heat energy obtained by the heat exchanging unit is sent to an electric power generating unit, whereby electric power is generated.
In the condensing mirror adapted to receive incident light from a number of heliostats, the light intensity of incident light becomes very high. Therefore, in a structure to support a condensing mirror, if the structure is made such that claws are protruded from a periphery of the condensing mirror to the reflecting mirror side so as to support the condensing mirror, the claws will be heated by incident light. As a result, there is a problem that the structure is required to have heat resistance property and heat conversion efficiency may be lowered. In contrast to the above, in the case that the reverse side of a mirror is pasted on a supporting member, if the mirror has a reflectance ratio of 100%, it is theoretically possible to avoid the problem in terms of heat. However, it is actually difficult to produce a mirror capable of realizing a reflectance ratio of 100%. Accordingly, incident light having been not reflected is absorbed by a mirror and is converted into heat, the mirror will be heated to an high temperature. For such a high temperature, an adhesive tape with heat resistance is expensive, and an adhesive tape used under a super high temperature of 200° C. or more is restricted in usage. Therefore, there is a problem of how to support a condensing mirror.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of this trouble, and an object of the present invention is to provide a mirror structure capable of reflecting incident light with good efficiency and is excellent in reliability.
A mirror structure of the present invention is a mirror structure which is used under an environment that the maximum irradiance of incident light is 5 kW/m2 or more, has an area of 0.2 m2 or more, and comprises a mirror, a supporting member and a resin-made adhesive sheet to glue the mirror to the supporting member, and the mirror structure is characterized in that the mirror is structured such that a dielectric multilayer is formed at least on an incident light side surface of a plate-shaped substrate and the mirror has an average reflectance ratio 95% or more for incident light having a wavelength in a range of 400 to 1000 nm.
According to the present invention, in the mirror, since a dielectric multilayer is formed at least on an incident light side surface of a plate-shaped substrate, when the incident light side surface is made to a reflective surface, it is possible to refrain incident light to pass in the substrate, whereby the absorption of incident light in the substrate is suppressed and it becomes possible to prevent the mirror from being heated. Therefore, it becomes possible to employ a resin-made adhesive tape which has a relatively low heat resistance, but has a strong adhesive strength and can make the thickness of an adhesive layer uniform, whereby a mirror structure having a good reflective characteristic can be produced at low cost. Further, since the average reflectance ratio of the mirror is 95% or more for incident light having a wavelength in a range of 400 to 1000 nm, the light having a wavelength, for example, in a range of 400 to 1000 nm which has the largest light amount among sunlight can be reflected with high reflectance ratio so that the absorption loss amount in the inside of the substrate can be suppressed. Furthermore, when a range of reflected wavelength is made narrow, a mirror having a high light utilization ratio can be obtained with a dielectric multilayer having a little number of layer structures, whereby the cost and the reflectance characteristics can be optimized. Here, the dielectric multilayer has a structure in which a high refractive index layer and a low refractive index layer are piled up on a substrate, and it is disclosed, for example, in the official document of Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2005-292462.
The mirror structure described in claim 2 is characterized in the invention described in claim 1 such that plural resin-made adhesive sheets are arranged in a discrete arrangement, and when the shortest distance between two neighboring glued regions among glued regions formed by the resin-made adhesive sheets is D, the specific gravity of the substrate is Sρ, the Young's modulus of the substrate is E, and the thickness of the substrate is t, the following conditional formula is satisfied.
0.05×(Et2/Sρ)<D<0.2×(Et2/Sρ) (1)
When the incident light side surface of the mirror faces downward in the direction of gravity, the mirror is partially supported by the resin-made adhesive sheet provided to its reverse surface. In this case, a part of the mirror which is not glued will bend downward by its own weight. Here, if the value of D exceeds the upper limit of the conditional formula (1), since a deviation at an arriving position of light reflected on the mirror becomes 1% or more, it is not desirable. On the other hand, if the value of D is less than the lower limit of the conditional formula (1), since the number of resin-made adhesive sheets will increase, the amount of gluing works will become increase and cost becomes high.
The mirror structure described in claim 3 is characterized, in the invention described in claim 1 or 2, such that the heatproof temperature of the resin-made adhesive sheet is 120° C. or more and 200° C. or less.
Since the average reflectance ratio of the mirror is 95% or more for incident light having a wavelength in a range of 400 to 1000 nm, it becomes possible to employ a resin-made adhesive sheet that has a relatively low heat resistance, but has a strong adhesive strength instead. As such a resin-made adhesive sheet, a joining tape for construction or acrylics foam double-face adhesive tape can be used, and as a specific product, for example, a trade name “VHB” produced by Sumitomo 3M, Inc. may be employed.
Further, it is desirable that heat resistance becomes high. However, since the mirror of the present invention has a structure capable of refraining an increase in temperature, it is desirable from the viewpoint of profitability that heat resistance is 200° C. or less.
The mirror structure described in claim 4 is characterized, in the invention described in any of claims 1 to 3, such that in the case that the fracture elongation rate of the resin-made adhesive sheet is 400% or more, when the linear expansion coefficient of a surface plate is A, the linear expansion coefficient of the substrate is B and the thickness of the resin-made adhesive sheet is τ, the following formula is satisfied.
10×10−6/K<A<20×10−6/K (2)
3×10−6/K<B<9×10−6/K (3)
0.3(mm)<τ<2.0(mm) (4)
If the conditional formulas (2) and (3) are satisfied, a linear expansion difference between the above-mentioned surface plate and the substrate becomes small. Therefore, even when a resin-made adhesive sheet having a thickness satisfying the conditional formula (4) is employed, lowering in flatness due to a temperature rise resulting from a linear expansion difference can be refrained.
Further, if the value of τ exceeds the upper limit of the conditional formula (4), it is not desirable, because the distance between the above-mentioned surface plate and the mirror may be extended due to an external force, such as the influence of a wind. On the other hand, if the value of τ is less than the lower limit of the conditional formula (4), the strength of adhesion may be lowered.
The mirror structure described in claim 5 is characterized, in the invention described in any of claims 1 to 4, such that the mirror covers the entire body of the supporting member, when the mirror is looked from the direction of incident light.
With this, it is possible to prevent the supporting member from being heated by being exposed to incident rays with high intensity.
The mirror structure described in claim 6 is characterized, in the invention described in any of claims 1 to 5, such that the gluing portions are distributed in such a way that the area of the gluing portions of the resin-made adhesive sheet to glue the mirror and the supporting member is 5% or more and 20% or less of the total area, and the smaller width of the gluing portion per one position is 50 mm or less.
In the case that the area of the mirror is 0.2 m2 or more, since a condensing mirror can be efficiently manufactured as compared with the manufacture in which a number of mirrors having a small area are pasted, it is desirable. However, since it may be difficult to accommodate such a large-sized mirror in a vacuum chamber etc., it is desirable to perform to paste the mirror to the surface plate under an atmospheric pressure. In this case, the glued portions are dispersed in such a way that the area of the glued portions being in close contact with the resin-made adhesive sheet is 5% or more and 20% or less to the total area, and the smaller width of the gluing portion per one position is 50 mm or less. Therefore, the gluing process becomes easy, and an amount of the resin-made adhesive sheet to be used can be reduced. As a result, it is possible to contribute to attain low cost.
The mirror structure described in claim 7 is characterized, in the invention described in any of claims 1 to 6, such that the linear expansion coefficient of the surface plate is smaller than 12×10−6/K, and the linear expansion coefficient of the substrate is larger than 3×10−6/K.
When the surface of the mirror becomes dirty due to the adhesion of dust etc., incident light is absorbed on the surface, and the surface becomes a heat source. Therefore, a temperature difference is caused between the substrate constituting the mirror and the surface plate of the supporting member pasted on the reverse surface of the substrate such that the surface plate of the temperature of the supporting member is lower than that of the substrate. In the situation that the predetermined temperature difference is caused as described above, it is preferable that the linear expansion coefficient of the surface plate is larger than that of the substrate as shown in the conditional formulas (2) and (3). However, under the consideration for the difference in linear expansion coefficient between the surface plate and the substrate, when the linear expansion coefficient of the surface plate is smaller than 12×10−6/K and the linear expansion coefficient of the substrate is larger than 3×10−6/K, the difference in the actual line expansion between the surface plate and the mirror becomes a small. As a result, it becomes possible to prevent distortion from taking place on the mirror surface.
Further, it is desirable that the reflectance ratio on the incident light side surface of the mirror is 95 or more for incident light with a wavelength in a range of 400 to 2000 nm. With this, for example, it is possible to reflect light having a wavelength of 400 to 1000 nm corresponding to almost all the wavelength of sunlight by the mirror with such a high reflectance ratio. Therefore, it becomes possible to suppress the amount of absorption loss at the inside of the substrate.
Further, it is desirable that the reflectance ratio on the incident light side surface of the mirror is 95% or more for incident light with a wavelength in a range of 400 to 1000 nm, the reflectance ratio on the surface of the mirror opposite to the incident light side surface is 95% or more for incident light with a wavelength in a range of 1000 to 2000 nm, and the substrate has optical transparency and a thickness of 3 mm or less. In this wary, for example, light having a wavelength of 400 to 1000 nm corresponding to the wavelength range to cover a large amount of light in sunlight is reflected by the dielectric multilayer of the surface of the mirror, and light having a wavelength in a range of 1000 to 2000 nm other than the above wavelength is reflected by the reverse surface of the mirror with the substrate having a thin thickness of 3 mm or less. Accordingly, the wavelength region of incident light to be reflected is shared by the incident light side surface and the reverse surface of the mirror, whereby incident light in a wide wavelength range can be reflected by the use of the dielectric multilayer capable of being produced at a low cost, and it becomes possible to provide a mirror structure capable of suppressing absorption of light.
Moreover, it is desirable that the supporting member comprises a honeycomb core and a surface plate fixed to this honeycomb core, and the resin-made adhesive sheet glues the mirror to the surface plate. With this structure, since the honeycomb core is lightweight and has high rigidity, it is effective in securing the flatness of the mirror.
Moreover, it desirable that the fracture elongation rate of the resin-made adhesive sheet is 400% or more, and the substrate member is made of glass and has a thickness of 0.5 mm or more. With this, in the support medium in which the surface plate is fixed to the honeycomb core, the flatness of a surface plate becomes comparatively good. However, there may be a case that small waviness with small cycle corresponding to the cycle of the honeycomb core remains on the above-mentioned surface plate. In this case, if the mirror is joined to the surface plate with a hard adhesive, there is a possibility that the mirror follows this waviness such that waviness is transferred on the surface of the mirror. In contrast, when the mirror comprising the glass-made substrate with a thickness of 0.5 mm or more is jointed to the surface plate with the resin-made adhesive sheet with a fracture elongation rate of 400% or more, the resin-made adhesive sheet absorbs the waviness, so that it becomes possible to suppress the influence of waviness to the flatness of the mirror.
Moreover, it is desirable that the above-mentioned surface plate is made of stainless steel. Generally, since the stainless steel is high elastic limit as compared with aluminum etc., if a load is applied on it, permanent deformation in geometry does not take place easily on it. Further, the stainless steel has good surface smoothness and the characteristic of hardly getting rusty as compared with iron. Accordingly, the stainless steel is suitable for use in the supporting member. Especially, since the stainless steel has good compatibility with the resin-made adhesive sheet, there is an advantage that the adhesive strength of the resin-made adhesive sheet to stainless steel is made high about 1.2 times to the adhesive strength to aluminum. In addition, it is desirable that the thickness of the surface plate made of stainless steel is 0.6 mm to 1.2 mm.
Moreover, when the width of the minimum portion of the mirror is Wmin, the thickness of the supporting member is t, and the average density of the supporting member is ρ (g/cm3), it is desirable to satisfy the following conditional formulas.
0.5(g/cm3)<ρ<1(g/cm3) (5)
0.01<τ3/Wmin2<0.05 (6)
With this, if the average density ρ is made high, the strength of the supporting member increases, but if it exceeds the upper limit of the conditional formula (5), the weight becomes over the limit. On the contrary, when the average density ρ is so small to be less than the lower limit of the conditional formula (5), it causes lack of strength. Therefore, it is desirable for the average density ρ to satisfy the conditional formula (5). Further, the conditional formula (6) specifies the thickness t of the supporting member corresponding to the size of the mirror, if the value of t3/Wmin2 is not less than the lower limit of the conditional formula (6), since the supporting member has a sufficient strength against a wind load etc., it is desirable. On the other hand, if the value of t3/Wmin2 is made not to exceed the upper limit of the conditional formula (6), since the supporting member becomes a weight easy to hold, it is desirable.
Moreover, it is desirable that the plural resin-made adhesive sheets are arranged with a distance and glue the mirror to the surface plate. If the mirror is joined to the surface plate by the entire surface adhesion, there is a possibility that air bubbles may be held between the mirror and the surface plate and the held air bubbles may reduce the flatness of the mirror. As compared with this, if the plural resin-made adhesive sheets are arranged with a distance, since air will escape through gaps, it is possible to secure the flatness of the mirror without holding air bubbles between the mirror and the surface plate.
Moreover, when the width of the maximum portion of the mirror is Wmax, a difference in linear expansion coefficient between the surface plate and the substrate member is Δβ, and the thickness of the resin-made adhesive sheet is τ, it is desirable to satisfy the following conditional formula.
100<τ(Wmax·Δβ)<500 (7)
If the value of τ/(Wmax·Δβ) exceeds the lower limit of the conditional formula (7), even if a temperature rise of 100° C. occurs, a difference in linear expansion between the honeycomb and the mirror substrate is absorbed by the elongation of an adhesive sheet, whereby it becomes possible to suppress the deformation of the surface of the mirror. On the other hand. If the value of τ/(Wmax·Δβ) is less than the upper limit of the conditional formula (7), since the resin-made adhesive sheet does not become thick more than needed, an amount of deformation in the compression direction and the extension direction becomes small, whereby it becomes possible to maintain the surface accuracy of the mirror.
According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a mirror structure capable of reflecting incident light with good efficiency and being excellent in reliability.
Hereafter, with reference to drawings, an embodiment of the present invention will be described more in detail.
In
On the upper end of the fork 7, a concave mirror 13 being a first optical element is held so as to rotate in the direction of elevation angle (B direction) freely. The concave mirror 13 is shaped in the form of a rectangular plate and has a reflective surface being a curved surface (including an aspheric surface, a paraboloidal surface, etc.). However, this reflective surface may be a flat surface.
Circular pipes 14 are fixed to the reverse side of the concave mirror 13. As shown in
On the other hand, as shown in
The height of the concave mirror 13 of the heliostat 5 becomes gradually high as the position of the concave mirror 13 separates from the condensing mirror 1 at the central section. This is because a concave mirror 13 is made to be prevented from becoming a shadow for another concave mirror 13 at the time of reflecting sunlight, whereby a shading loss can be prevented from taking place.
Moreover, in
With regard to light being required to be reflected on the inside of this condensing mirror 4, it may be preferable that, as shown in
A cross sectional view of a mirror M used for the mirror-structures OS is shown in
The mirror M has a dimension of 1 m×1 m (namely, Wmin=1 m, Wmax=1.41 m), and the dimension of each of the surface plates PT1, PT2 and honeycomb core HC having the same figure or a similar figure as the mirror M is made smaller than the mirror M. Therefore, they are covered with the mirror M, when being looked from the direction of incident light. The thickness of the mirror M is 2 mm. Further, the thickness of surface plates PT1 and PT2 is 0.8 mm, respectively, and the thickness “t” of the supporting member including the honeycomb core HC is 25 mm, and the thickness “τ” of the resin-made adhesive sheet VHB is 1 mm.
Hereafter, the desirable values of each of the above-mentioned conditional formulas are shown.
D=20 cm, (Et2/Sρ)=218 cm Conditional formula (1):
A=10.4×10−6/K Conditional formula (2):
B=8×10−6/K Conditional formula (3):
τ=1.0 m Conditional formula (4):
ρ=0.68 g/cm3 Conditional formula (5):
t3/Wmin2=0.016 Conditional formula (6):
τ/(Wmax·Δβ)=296 Conditional formula (7):
Further,
Furthermore,
Here, if a resin-made adhesive sheet VHB having a large area is used, air bubbles tend to enter easily the glued surface. As a result, the glued area becomes small. Further, the reduction of adhesive force and the expansion of air bubbles due to a rise of temperature make the bonded area smaller, and the desired adhesive force will not be obtained. Furthermore, since the level of the bonded surface will change, flatness gets worse. In order to cope with the above problems, usually the bonding is conducted in a vacuum chamber. However, in order to bond a wide area, since a large vacuum chamber is needed, there is a demerit that the cost becomes high.
Furthermore,
Moreover,
By the use of the patterns shown in
Next, the above-mentioned conditional formula (1) will be explained in detail.
As shown in
θmax=wD3/24EI (8)
Where w represents the weight of the substrate SS per unit length in the direction along the distance, E represents the Young's modulus of the substrate SS, and I represents the secondary cross-section moments of the substrate SS.
When the specific gravity of the substrate SS is set to Sρ, thickness of the substrate SS is set to t, and the depth of the substrate SS is set to b, the weight w of the substrate SS is represented with the following formula.
w=Sρtb (9)
Further, the secondary cross-section moments I of the substrate SS is represented with the following formula.
I=bt3/12 (10)
When the formula (9) and (10) are substituted for the formula (8), θmax can be represented as follows.
θmax=SρD3/2Et2=½{D/(Et2/Sρ)}3
As shown in
If the mirror M inclines with a bending angle θ, the angle of a reflected light on the part will deviate by 2θ. Therefore, the deviation of an arriving position of light rays at a position with the distance x from the mirror M becomes 2θx. It is desirable that the deviation of an arriving position is 1% or less. For such a purpose, it needs to make such that 2θ<0.01 radian, i.e., θ<0.005 radian.
Therefore, it is desirable that from the view point of allowance, the set-up is selected within the following range.
D/(Et2/Sρ)<0.2
On the other hand, with the assumption that resin-made adhesive sheets VHB are arranged with an isotropic distribution, if the distance D of neighboring resin-made adhesive sheets VHB is made small, as shown in
It is assumed that D/(Et2/Sρ)<0.05, for example, only with a change of from “0.05” to “0.04”, the number of the resin-made adhesive sheets VHB will become 1.6 times.
Therefore, it is desirable that the set-up is made within the following conditional formula (1).
0.05×(Et2/Sρ)<D<0.2×(Et2/Sρ) (1)
The film thickness data of the dielectric multilayer used suitably for a mirror in Example are shown in Table 1.
In the example in which the dielectric multilayer shown in Table 1 was formed on an incidence plane of a glass-made substrate and a metal deposition film made from a material of Cu was formed on a plane of the substrate at the opposite side to the incidence plane,
The film thickness data of the dielectric multilayer used suitably for a mirror in Example are shown in Table 2. In the case where the dielectric multilayer of the example and the comparative example shown in Table 2 was formed on an incidence plane of a glass substrate,
As mentioned above, although the present invention has been explained with reference to embodiments, it should not be interpreted that the present invention is limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and it is clear that modification and improvement can be made suitably.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-176460 | Jul 2008 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2009/062283 | 7/6/2009 | WO | 00 | 12/15/2009 |
| Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| WO2010/004954 | 1/14/2010 | WO | A |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6252155 | Ortabasi | Jun 2001 | B1 |
| 20080105293 | Lu et al. | May 2008 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 11-119105 | Apr 1999 | JP |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20100182709 A1 | Jul 2010 | US |
