Thursday, November 27, 2014

Finals, Papers, and Sunshine OH MY!

The final sprint to the end of the semester has begun.  With only a couple weeks of classes left, I am somewhat relieved, while being simultaneously overwhelmed by the amount of work that is piling up.  I have spent the majority of my efforts this week preparing my research paper for S-STEM, and hopefully I will have the paper and the power point done this weekend.  This week we finished the parabolic trough...finally.  Mylar sheeting has been attached to the frame and we are on course for steam generation for the latter part of next week.

Below are a few photos of the parabolic trough, before attaching the Mylar sheeting to the trough.  The process involved with attaching the takes a few days to complete.  Cleaning the sheet metal with acetone was step one, followed by laying down a layer of primer on the sheet metal.  After the primer dries, it is then wet sanded and another coat of primer is applied to the sheet metal.  After a final sanding, the Mylar sheeting can be applied using glue, and a careful hand when applying the Mylar, as it can dull and scratch quite easily.



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