Outdoor exposure testing of silvered-glass reflectors under marine environment

Abstract

Marine environments are characterized by aggressive climate conditions that are suitable for materials durability testing especially for solar mirrors. In order to obtain real data and significant results of new solar mirrors durability in shorter time, outdoor ageing tests could be conducted in such high corrosive environment since it provokes faster degradation. This paper presents the results of the first year of natural exposure testing of different type of silvered glass mirrors at a marine site in Morocco. Many failure modes were observed and analyzed during this study. Corrosion is the predominant failure mode that occurs in all mirror samples and causes a significant loss of their reflectivity. The behavior of tested mirrors was found to be depending especially to the used paint system.