Burnt By The Sun: Uzbekistan’s Spectacular Solar Furnace

[dufus]

 

 

Inside the formerly top-secret facility used by the Soviet Union’s space and weapons programs.

 

 

This is Uzbekistan’s solar furnace, built by the Soviets in 1981 on a mountain range 50 kilometers east of Tashkent.

 

 

The site was top secret during the Soviet period and remained tightly guarded until 2009.

 

 

The furnace uses sunlight to produce clean, instantly adjustable heat for melting or testing materials.

 

 

The power for the furnace comes from these 62 giant mirrors that swivel to bounce sunlight toward a vast "concentrator" dish.

 

 

A window in the center of the concentrator, which is made up of 10,700 chessboard-sized mirrors.

 

 

The concentrator dish focuses the sunlight onto a point the size of a large wok.

 

 

Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., when the sun is at its strongest, the furnace can blaze at a ferocious 3,000 degrees Celsius – easily hot enough to liquefy iron, steel, and even titanium.

 

Ceramic parts are also produced in the facility.

 

 

The furnace was “the leading facility of [the Soviet Union’s] military-industrial complex for [the] testing of different materials and equipment [with] concentrated solar radiation and for [the] development of advanced ceramic materials for high-tech industry.”

 

 

The furnace currently takes industrial orders from Uzbekistan and abroad, blazing to life around 100 times each year.

 

 

Javohir Zafarovich, a researcher who has worked at the facility for 21 years, demonstrates the power of a miniature concentrator in the facility. Within a second or two the stick popped into flames.

 

 

A researcher analyzing material samples. Around 160 people still work at the site, down from around 1,500 during the Soviet period.

 

The furnace's location was chosen partly for the single, solid lump of bedrock that it is built on. The rock plate insulates the finely tuned apparatus from the dozens of seismic tremors that rattle Uzbekistan every year.

 

Surprisingly, the highest temperatures at the furnace are achieved on bright winter days when the air carries less dust and moisture than in the summer.

 

 

 

Asked what happens when birds fly close to the focal point of the furnace, Zafarovich grimaces and replies: “Barbecue.”

 

Zafarovich says the main advantage of the solar furnace is the total purity of the heat -- unlike fuel-powered furnaces that generate smoke and other impurities -- and the ability to instantly change temperatures.

 

The disadvantages of the solar furnace are more obvious, as cloudy weather can leave the furnace idle for days on end.

 

 

A local in the village below the furnace said a trickle of foreign visitors are beginning to venture here, something unimaginable for much of the facility's existence when it operated in strict secrecy producing rocket and weapons parts while villagers and shepherds below got on with rural life.

 

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