Concave Mirror

[Beswad]

Whats the maximum temperature you can achieve using a concave mirror, say 100ft wide, to focus the suns heat into a single point?

What effect would it have on the surrounding air at the focus point?

[Space]

If I remember well, you can get up to 1000W of sunlight per square meter.
So that can help you to calculate how much power your mirror will concentrate...
Then the temperature will depend on what there is at the focal point ...

[SteveD]

Scroll down and you'll see a photo of on one this French site:

http://www.philagora.org/pyrenees-orientales/four-solaire1.htm

It's very impressive (I've been there and seen a 100 cm concave mirror melt a stone. The mirror had been taken from a German WW2 searchlight).

The large mirror ion the picture receives sunlight reflected from rows of mirrors arranged on a slope in front of it.

I'll look through the site to see if there are any other photos and/or interesting information.

[SteveD]

This site will probably give you the information you require:

http://www.imp.cnrs.fr/foursol/1000.shtml

The English language link didn't work for me.

[BillyBB]

For English go to the index page and click the flag. Then you can navigate the whole site.

Great link thanks, bringing back distant memories.