3 ms·
The outside surface would also be fairly strongly coupled to the ambient environment due to convection. I suspect that coupling the outside surface past the ins
by upofadown 12y ago
The outside surface would also be fairly strongly coupled to the ambient environment due to convection. I suspect that coupling the outside surface past the insulation would be a loss in any case where it was hot enough outside to make people care about air conditioning.
- logfromblammo 12y agoCouldn't you just put the whole thing behind a layer that does not absorb IR or visible light, but is also a poor thermal conductor? The article mentioned that they did that using an enclosed box to test the material. It wouldn't be much additional effort to add a heat pipe that transfers heat from the object to be cooled, through the box, to the radiator-reflector. That way, you are cooling only what you want to cool rather than the whole environment surrounding the device.
- upofadown 12y agoI was thinking about that too. You would need one or more sheets of something transparent to infrared 8-13 microns. Such materials apparently do exist: http://www.infraredtraininginstitute.com/infrared-transparent-materials/ http://www.infraredtraininginstitute.com/infrared-transparen... Such a material would also have to not absorb too much sunlight.