ME 430 Experiment Design

The goal of this project is to develop two experiments for the ME 430 class. These include a heat pipe and solar panel experiments. The heat pipe experiment consists of reverse engineering a heat pipe thesis by W.K. Rossiter and designing an experiment that goes with the heat pipe. The solar panel experiment consists of a solar panel that tracks the movement of the sun and a pyranometer to gather data from the different forms of solar radiation.

Background
Dr. Kumal Kumar wants the Capstone Design students to design two experiment platforms for the ME 430 class to use in their curriculum. For the solar panel, he wants us to make a solar tracking device that gives us feedback on how much solar energy is being produced as it follows the sun. This information would be used to generate a efficiency curve for a given solar panel.

Client Interview

 * Discussed the specifications of what the solar tracker should have.
 * Needs to have different Operating Modes (i.e. I-V Characteristics from forms of tracking).
 * Before programming there needs to be an understanding of how the actuators determine position.
 * Understand the governing equations that will be used to determine the angle of the panel.
 * Budget will determine whether we have single or dual axis movement.

Lead Instructor and Technical Advisor Meetings

 * Discussed our weekly issues and where we are ahead/behind.
 * Discussed technical questions about the solar tracker.
 * Received feedback on designs.

Research
Our research consisted of two sections:

Solar Tracker Design
As a team sub section we researched different designs of solar trackers, in both single-axis and multi-axis variations. After finding designs we thought would work well for our application of a solar tracker. We needed a design that would work with the size of linear actuators that we chose, this way we would get the most movement out of our two axes. We decided to go with a design similar to this Progressive Automations design.

One Vs. Two Axes of Movement
Dr. Kumar taught a Sustainable Energy Sources and Systems (ME 404) that included notes on the equations that were developed to track the sun. Using these we could accurately position the solar panel for maximum efficiency. For the solar panel to follow the sun in the most accurate way we would need two axes of movement. This is way we could precisely position the solar panel's North to South angle compared to a normal way of affixing the solar panel at the appropriate angle. We were able to find a table that showed our case effectively:



Programmable DC Electronic Load
The BK Precision Electronic Load Model 8500 was selected to dissipate and read the power/voltage/current levels from the solar panel. This electronic load also works with the LabView software and that makes it suitable for this project.

Solar Panel
During the initial design phase there was discussion on the capacity of the solar panel. We decided on a 100-Watt solar panel from Grape Solar because the electronic load we selected can accurately dissipate and read the load value. The solar panel also comes with a number of features that allow us to have flexibility in our design, one example is weatherproofing. We can't have an ME 430 student falling behind because of a string of rainy days.

Background
Dr. Kumal Kumar wants the Capstone Design students to design two experiment platforms for the ME 430 class to use in their curriculum. For the heat pipe, he wants us to build it based on a thesis by William Kent Rossiter in 1970.

Project Learning
For this project we learned how a heat pipe works and what affects it. We learned what each component in the heat pipe did and how vital each of the specs were to the performance.

Client Interview
Dr. Kumar wanted to us to read up on heat pipes and how they work. One of the goals is to have a temperature distribution. Another goal was to have the heat pipe oriented in the vertical and horizontal position. Need to look up and see what thermal couples are going to be used. Need to know what is being tested for our heat pipe and have a plan for an experiment. All hardware we get must be labview compatible. Our SolidWorks model for the heat pipe is our prototype.

Research
We needed to build the heat pipe around testing the heat pipe, so we needed to research and find what were some of the most common test. One of those test were a heat distribution.