please give me some advice?

Question

i have designed an physics experiment as below:
Aim:
The aim of this experiment is to use different shapes of mirrors to reflect the sunlight onto the solar panel, and find out which shape of mirror makes the most efficient solar power of the solar panel.
Apparatus:
A solar panel, Mirrors (maybe shape of circle, triangle, rectangle, ect..), wires, An ammeter
A voltmeter
Method:
1. Set up a circuit to connect the ammeter and voltmeter to the solar panel
2. Put a mirror at 45°angel of the solar panel
3. Record the voltages and currents
4. Put the mirror at 90°of the solar panel
5. Record the voltages and currents
6. Repeat step 5 for different shapes of mirrors
i have 2 problems now:1.if i put the mirrors at different angles,i don't know what angles should be chosen to test(i am afraid i miss the best one)2.i have thought of do one shape of mirror each day,start from 9 am to 4pm(the angle of the sun is changing),i am considering the weather won't be the same every day.what should i do?

Answer 1

While I wish you well in your experiment, I am afraid there are some small problems in its design.

1. Depending on the shape of the solar panel, you should choose the shape of the mirror such that the total panel is illuminated. No need to experiment with different shapes.

2. A tracking mirror (which rotates over a wide angle so that the sunlight is always falling on the panel during the day) will be the best bet so that you need not bother about some fixed angles.

3. You may consider using a plane mirror and a concave mirror (which focusses the light) and see which gives you the better results.

4. You can measure the intensity of the sunlight at a particular setting at the same time every day and if that reading is same, you can quicky change the set up and measure the voltage and current in a different set up.

Wish you success.

Answer 2

The shapes if the mirrors will not have as much to do with the energy yield as the area of the mirror(s) compared to the solar collector.

Keep in mind that you will be dealing with two angles of solar incidence on your solar collecting panel -- the angle of the reflected solar light from the mirror and the angle of the sunlight striking the solar collector directly.

Cloud cover will hamper your efforts, so you will need a second solar collector mounted at the same attuitude, being measured simultaneously and compared to the collector with the mirror. This way, you'll have your test against a standard with the mirror being the difference.

Answer 3

This is the same question you recently posted.

My advice is to drop the mirors completely. You might use one mirror and vary the angle or vary the angle of the panel itself with respect to the sun. Use a level and measure the angle. You should be able to do all of your data recording during the noon hour or so on the same day. Plot the variance of the current produced as a function of the angle. You might also note your latitude.

Answer 4

Good idea for experimentation, but the shape of the mirror shouldn't make any difference as long as the AREA for each mirror is exactly equal.

As long as the areas of each mirror is equal, you will need to do the test for all the mirrors at exactly the same time each day... I mean by that, that if one mirror of equal size were tested during the winter would be different than if tested during the summer, but all done within a few days duration shouldn't make any significant difference.

Testing each the entire day would be good, but then you would have to assure that the days provided exactly the same exposure... Hmmm... A half-hour's less exposure due to clouds would complicate things, wouldn't it?

The better way would be to test ALL of them at the same time. Hope this helps!
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Have you thought about convex mirrors? Focusing mirrors?