Radiant cooling.
An approach to the design and analysis of passive radiant coolers is developed. It is based on the use of a highly reflecting, specular cone channel to direct emission from a cooled volume (patch) to cold regions of space. The essence of the approach lies in the determination of the patch-cone radiative coupling, which is analyzed by means of the specular image technique. The optimum cone geometry depends on the parameter to be extremized as well as on the constraints imposed by limited dimensions on the cooler and a limited view of cold space. Specific equations for the calculation of the patch-cone radiative coupling are given for a cooler of rectangular geometry and employed in a sample cooler design. The over-all procedure based on the image technique has proved to be useful and accurate in the design and analysis of radiant coolers for spacecraft applications.
Annable
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RV