Consider a large solar sail in the form of a square with sides of length e = 100 m that is fabricated from a stiff, completely transparent plastic sheet. To make the sail more rigid the plastic sheet is bent back and forth along a series of equispaced lines parallel to one edge thereby forming a "concertina-like" structure as shown in the figure. The distance, d, between the bends is d << l and the angle at each bend is 90°. a) If the front face of the sail has a highly reflective coating deposited on it and the sail is illuminated normally with radiation of intensity I = 1.3 kW m², determine the total radiative force experienced by the sail. b) If over time the reflective coating degrades such that it only reflects 50% of the incident radiation, the remaining 50% being transmitted through the plastic sheet, what is the radiative force now experienced by the sail? l=100m c) How is the answer to part b) changed if the plastic sheet has also degraded such that it is no longer completely transparent but absorbs 30% of the radiation attempting to pass through it? [Note - all dimensions in this problem are very much larger than the wavelength of the incident radiation.]
Consider a large solar sail in the form of a square with sides of length e = 100 m that is fabricated from a stiff, completely transparent plastic sheet. To make the sail more rigid the plastic sheet is bent back and forth along a series of equispaced lines parallel to one edge thereby forming a "concertina-like" structure as shown in the figure. The distance, d, between the bends is d << l and the angle at each bend is 90°. a) If the front face of the sail has a highly reflective coating deposited on it and the sail is illuminated normally with radiation of intensity I = 1.3 kW m², determine the total radiative force experienced by the sail. b) If over time the reflective coating degrades such that it only reflects 50% of the incident radiation, the remaining 50% being transmitted through the plastic sheet, what is the radiative force now experienced by the sail? l=100m c) How is the answer to part b) changed if the plastic sheet has also degraded such that it is no longer completely transparent but absorbs 30% of the radiation attempting to pass through it? [Note - all dimensions in this problem are very much larger than the wavelength of the incident radiation.]
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