View Single Post
Old 08-26-2018, 10:39 PM   #2569 (permalink)
All Darc
Banned
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Location: Brazil
Posts: 1,476
Thanks: 14
Thanked 363 Times in 327 Posts
Area x Volume and Gulliver's Island

What these 3 have related?
A airplane. A small one...

You can increase surface area, when working with solar panels, solar photovoltaic cells. You can add more solar cells in larger vehicles, since they hage huger surface area. But while you increase a vehicle it's more close to increase the scale, instead of just surface, and surface and volume increase in very different ways.

If you double width and double lenght, you end with 4 times the initial surface area. But if you double the width, double the lenght and double height, you end with 8 times the initial volume or weight. So while you increase vehicles with larger, longer and taller models, like go from cars to trucks, the surface area for solar panels get more an more irrelevant.
That's why solar heavy trucks will not be reality even if a 99% efficient solar photovoltaics cell could be created.
Trucks could just save some little few fuel using solar panels for refrigeration, in cases the refrigeration it's required for the load.

Now let's think back in the reversal way, if we decrease the scale, the relevance of surface area for solar panels/cell and in relation to the weigh of the vehicle became more and more atractive.

That's why if you was a citizen in Gulliver's island you could perhaps have a solar airplane.



I wonder if this model have a supercapasitor to save energy when the solar plane cells are not well directed to the sun, or if it just lose some power for some short instants (1/3 sec or 1/2 second) when the manuever more the cells for a very less ideal angle related to the sun.

I know there is already a solar airplane, in our world (not Gulliver's Island), but it's for justone person, have carbon fiber structure, have very large wings, and the solar cells also works as part of the cover ove the wings frame, all to save weight. And very slow....

Last edited by All Darc; 08-26-2018 at 10:54 PM..
 
The Following User Says Thank You to All Darc For This Useful Post:
aerohead (08-30-2018)