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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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165 records · Page 10

Development of a Cryogen-Free Continuous ADR for the Constellation-X Mission

Constellation-X is a multi-satellite x-ray astronomy mission presently being planned for launch in the 2010 time frame. Each of 4 identical satellites will contain a telescope and instruments for imaging and spectroscopic analysis of both hard and soft x-rays. The X- ray Microcalorimeter Spectrometer (XMS) instrument will use arrays of microcalorimeters to detect X-rays with energies from 0.2 to 6 keV. The technologies under development for this instrument include Transition-Edge Sensors (TES) with multiplexed SQUID readouts and NTD-Ge detectors with JFET readouts. Both will be operated at temperatures in the 50-60 mK range and both have a projected cooling power requirement of approximately 5 microwatts. In addition, in order to meet the lifetime requirement of 6 years (with a goal of 10 years), a mechanical cryocooler will be used to provide a heat sink for the low temperature cooler. The required performance is 20 mW at 6 K, with a goal of 4 K operation. In this paper we present the development status of an adiabatic demagnetization refigerator (ADR) that meets the cooling requirements of the X M S instrument. At present we have demonstrated a 4-stage ADR that operates continuously at 50 mK using a 4.2 K helium bath as a heat sink. The cooling power is 21 microwatts at 100 mK and 6 microwatts at 50 mK. Its efficiency when operating at 50 mK is 1 1 % of Carnot (accounting for all dissipation at 4.2 K and below, but not including power dissipation in the room temperature electronics), but this is expected to rise to 25% in the next generation system in which active gas-gap heat switches are replaced with passive devices. This will reduce the peak heat rejection rate of the ADR to less than 7 mW at 6 K. Details of the ADR s design and operation, as well as the development program leading up to a flight-qualified instrument, will be discussed.

Shirron, Peter↗

Self-Cooling Multiferroic Magnetic Devices

Increasing switching frequency reduces magnetic volume, but conventional ferrites, used from tens to hundreds of kilohertz, cannot sustain the temperature and frequency ranges demanded by current and emerging wide bandgap and ultrawide bandgap devices. Here, this work presents a novel magnetic material architecture combining nanocrystalline magnetic material and multiferroic layers for megahertz power conversion. The high saturation flux density of nanocrystalline alloys supports miniaturization but is traditionally constrained by excessive losses above 10 kHz. A revolutionary multiferroic material with solid-state cooling via caloric materials is defined that will enable the next generation of magnetic devices for wide-bandgap-integrated designs. This letter highlights the fundamental physics behind this capability alongside early development of a finite element analysis for the multiferroic-based magnetic device using ANSYS, showing that the core achieves more uniform thermal distribution and reduces peak temperature by 9 ° C compared to conventional ferrites.

Soft magnetic materials↗

Strength distributions of laminated FeNi-based metal amorphous nanocomposite ribbons

Metal Amorphous Nanocomposite (MANC) materials offer low losses at high magnetic switching frequency, enabling high power density motors with increased rotational speed. While MANCs have high strength, they are brittle. The use of motor components such as a rotor consisting of brittle material presents a reliability concern. Here, a promising MANC alloy is subjected to tensile tests and failure is observed with high-speed photography. A method is developed to prepare tensile specimens of laminated MANC and epoxy layers, simulating the stacking of an epoxy-impregnated tape-wound core. Tensile tests are conducted for single layer ribbon and for five- and ten-layer stacks of laminated material with thin layers of thermosetting epoxy. Failure distributions are shown to have increasing Weibull modulus with increasing layer count. The composite MANC material system is modeled using chain-of-bundles models. Using a k-failure model, we show that single ribbon strength distribution data can be used to predict well the failure distribution of laminated stacks. The agreement occurs when the assumed ineffective length, over which load is recovered in a failed layer, is comparable to the observed interlaminar separation length.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗