Solar radiation 101....Basic physics
Most people assume that during the summer time the suns rays are twice as powerful because it is hotter and during a heatwave, the suns rays are even more powerful!
TRUE OR FALSE?
The fact is: Yes the sun has varying distances from the earth; summer solice the sun is closer to the earth, whilst in winter it is slightly further... but the fact is the brightness of the sun does not change that much through out the year!
We measure the suns brightness in watts per metre square, just like we measure a light globe eg. 100W light globe, we measure the suns light of how many watts are in every square metre.
The suns light is: 1412 Watts peak in january (summer peak) down to 1321 Watts in early july (winter peak) with clouds then affecting the level that actually reaches the earths surface.
Now you may ask why am I going on about this?....
Because we need to make it clear before we explain how our collector works the truth of how much light is available during winter and that temperature is not a reflection of the power of the suns rays.
Unlike flat panel collectors, the evacuated tube absorbs LIGHT not HEAT..... thus what we are saying is the tube converts LIGHT ENERGY into HEAT ENERGY to heat your water and unlike flat panel systems, the evacuated tube system will work perfectly in a snow area because of the amount of light available!
So on the earths outer atmosphere we only have a varying 91Watts from winter to summer..... not much hey!!!
How does our collector work?
First.... lets look at basic physics of our tube!
The sun shines onto the glass. The rays convert from long rays to short rays and become trapped inside the vacuum.
Because heat acts like any natural element such as water, fire, electricity..... it has to follow the path of least resistance....thus we have special coatings on the inner tube to conduct this heat energy.
Lets look at the special coatings.
By having some of the most CONDUCTIVE material known to man, being copper, stainless steel and aluminium coated on the outside of the inner tube, the heat has to follow the path of least resistance.... which because of our vacuum almost ALL of this heat is transferred through the metal coatings and to inside the evacuated tube.
PRETTY AWESOME STUFF HEY!
Now some of you who know a little about dissimilar metals will know that copper and aluminium bonded together will cause a reaction and cause them to eat away at each other..... thus the stainless steel STOPS this from happening and allows them to conduct heat in harmony...
Further more the stainless steel acts like a one of your coffee flasks and helps retain the heat inside our tube!
This is what the end of a tube looks like with a heat pipe surrounded by a heat absorbing shim
The heat pipe bulb end is covered with thermal heat paste to maximize conductivity and is then inserted into the water manifold as shown below
The heat pipe has its own thermo-siphon action happening which causes hot fluid to rise to the bulb and the cooler fluid to sink to the bottom of the tube, which in turn is re-heated by the tube again and again and again
Most other companies with this product have distilled water inside the heat pipe as water inside a vacuum has a boiling point of only 25 degrees C.
Sunrise Solar orders special refrigerant/glycol mix heat pipes that out perform the standard distilled water heat pipe with a lower boiling point and a hotter bulb.
This is to conduct as much heat as possible on cloudy days!
There you go! The Sunrise Solar collector! Add a water circulation pump and a quality Aquamax storage tank, you have one of most efficient solar water heaters on the market!
We hope you found this information interesting and highly educational!
If you have any further questions please send us an email on “Contact Me” on the bottom of this page.