美国能源部国家核安全管理局（NNSA）的承包商桑迪亚国家实验室（NNSA）使用3D打印设计了一套有效的太阳能接收器。
Multiple complex prototype designs for receivers, which receive solar energy and feed it into an electricity generator, were produced using powder bed fusion 3D printing of a high temperature nickel alloy.
The receivers have been produced as part of a project for the Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), a government-sponsored collaboration between the Indian Institute of Science and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
该项目的目标之一是开发具有成本效益的太阳能设施，能够为印度村庄产生一个或更少的兆瓦，并取代许多村庄仍然使用的污染柴油发电机。
解决效率低下和可扩展性
Conventional commercially available solar power receivers consist of flat panel of tubes or tubes arranged in a cylinder. While these designs can absorb between 80 and 90 percent of the concentrated sunlight directed at them, this is still neither cost effective enough nor scalable enough for the desired applications.
解决此问题的一种选择是应用含有纳米晶体的特殊涂料来提高能量吸收效率。但是，随着时间的流逝，这些涂料可能会受到损坏，并且维护昂贵。
桑迪亚工程师（Sandia）工程师克里夫·霍（Cliff Ho）从事该项目的工作，他解释说：“在平坦的接收器设计上，浓缩的阳光中有5％或更多。”桑迪亚的工程师相反，设计，生产和完善了类似分形的接收器设计。
“We configured the panels of tubes in a radial or louvered pattern that traps the light at different scales,” Ho explained. “We wanted the light to reflect, and then reflect again toward the interior of the receiver and get absorbed, sort of like the walls of a sound-proof room.”
从小型原型到工作模型
为了找到最有效，最具成本效益的设计，Sandia Team 3D使用粉末床融合技术打印了一套用于测试的原型设计。最终用于叶片设计的材料是一种称为Iconel 718的镍合金，非常适合承受太阳能传导的高温。
3D printing the prototypes, according to Ho, “enabled us to generate complex geometries for the receiver tubes in a small-scale prototype.” According to the Sandia engineer, these geometries would not have been possible to configure using “extrusion, casting or welding.”
Each set of receivers was tested at国家太阳能热测试设施, where mirror-like heliostats are aimed at a tall building with the receiver at the top. The receivers absorb the sunlight’s heat, and transfer them to the fluids inside. Fluids tested include molten salts, steam, air, carbon dioxide and helium.
Sandia’s specific test involves combining receivers with withsupercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycles，一种由加压“半流体”二氧化碳供电的涡轮发电机系统高于其正常临界温度和压力的加热。
其他
桑迪亚国家实验室也是激光工程网（镜头）技术。Optomec，以3D打印智能手机, began to apply LENS technology to additive manufacturing after former Sandia scientist David Keicher joined the company in 1997.
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特色图片显示桑迪亚实习生耶稣·奥尔特加（Jesus Ortega）检查了一个新的刀片接收器。通过Sandia/Randy Montoya的照片。
