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Applications for new class of materials termed oxide-dispersion strengthened materials offering stability at high temperatures and high thermal and electrical conductivity
Surface-plateauing techniques, and flexible surface membranes for improved thermal conductance of mechanical joints in vacuum
Charged particle temperatures and electron thermal conductivity in upper atmosphere
Multilayer insulation systems evaluation for 300 to 700 degrees K temperatures
Effective gap thickness and gap number relation determined from correlation of parameters of thermal contact conductance
Similar or dissimilar materials thermal contact resistance in vacuum with negligible film effect, obtaining constriction resistance
Momentary short-circuit arcs between a defective polyimide-insulated wire and another conductor may thermally char (pyrolize) the insulating material. The charred polyimide, being conductive, can sustain the short-circuit arc, which may propagate along the wire through continuous pyrolization of the polyimide insulation (arc tracking). If the arcing wire is part of a multiple-wire bundle, the polyimide insulation of other wires within the bundle may become thermally charred and start arc tracking also (flash over). Such arc tracking can lead to complete failure of an entire wire bundle, causing other critical spacecraft or aircraft failures. Unfortunately, all tested candidate wire insulations for aerospace vehicles were susceptible to arc tracking. Therefore, a test procedure was designed at the NASA Lewis Research Center to select the insulation type least susceptible to arc tracking. This test procedure addresses the following three areas of concern: (1) probability of initiation, (2) probability of reinitiation (restrike), and (3) extent of arc tracking damage (propagation rate). Item 2 (restrike probability) is an issue if power can be terminated from and reapplied to the arcing wire (by a switch, fuse, or resettable circuit breaker). The degree of damage from an arcing event (item 3) refers to how easily the arc chars nearby insulation and propagates along the wire pair. Ease of nearby insulation charring can be determined by measuring the rate of arc propagation. Insulation that chars easily will propagate the arc faster than insulation that does not char very easily. A popular polyimide insulated wire for aerospace vehicles, MIL-W-81381, was tested to determine a degree of damage from an arcing event (item 3) in the following three environments: (1) microgravity with air at 1-atm pressure, (2) 1g with air at 1 atm, and (3) 1g within a 10^-6 Torr vacuum. The microgravity 1-atm air was the harshest environment, with respect to the rate of damage of arc tracking, for the 20 AWG (American Wiring Gauge) MIL-W-81381 wire insulation type . The vacuum environment resulted in the least damage. Further testing is planned to determine if the environmental results are consistent between insulation types and to evaluate the other two parameters associated with arc tracking susceptibility.
A round bobbin test has been widely used to measure critical current Ic of practical superconductors including Nb–Ti, Nb3Sn, and Bi-2212 round strands at 4.2 K and in high magnetic fields but rarely used for rare earth-barium-copper-oxide (REBCO) coated conductor tapes. Here, we applies this method to REBCO tapes and test their Ic at 77 K, self-field, and 4.2 K with a magnetic field of 14 T applied parallel to the tape. The sample carries very high current densities; it is 1.3 m long and has a dense array of voltage taps that allows probing localized thermal runaways and correlation with Ic variations along the length. At 77 K, the Ic values of all sections were measured and found to be rather uniform. However, at 4.2 K, we found that a 3 cm section has 90% of the overall voltage drop and it went into thermal runaways upon further increasing current. Thus, at 4.2 K, we were prevented by localized thermal runaways and unable to determine Ic of most of the REBCO conductor sections; this behavior is different from Bi-2212 and Bi-2223 for which Ic of all turns of a round barrel sample can be determined. We simulate REBCO tapes during current ramping to a thermal runaway and analyze impacts of various factors including cooling, conductor n-values, and thickness of stabilizer on the thermal runaway current Iq. The combined experiments and simulations identify n-value as a crucial factor that leads to the observed differences between Bi-2212 and REBCO. Together with cooling and the standard deviation of Ic variations along the length, the n-value determines whether Iq is above or below the average Ic of a long piece of conductor and their ratio Iq/Ic,ave, greatly affecting quench detection and thermal runaway prevention strategies of Bi-2212 and REBCO magnets.
Doping of organic semiconductors is a powerful tool to optimize the performance of various organic (opto)electronic and bioelectronic devices. Despite recent advances, the low thermal stability of the electronic properties of doped polymers still represents a significant obstacle to implementing these materials into practical applications. Hence, the development of conducting doped polymers with excellent long-term stability at elevated temperatures is highly desirable. Here, we report on the sequential doping of the ladder-type polymer poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL) with a benzimidazole-based dopant (i.e., N-DMBI). By combining electrical, UV–vis/infrared, X-ray diffraction, and electron paramagnetic resonance measurements, we quantitatively characterized the conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, spin density, and microstructure of the sequentially doped polymer films as a function of the thermal annealing temperature. Importantly, we observed that the electrical conductivity of N-DMBI-doped BBL remains unchanged even after 20 h of heating at 190 °C. This finding is remarkable and of particular interest for organic thermoelectrics.
This research project was a collaborative investigation between researchers at the RTX Technology Research Center (RTRC) and the University of Texas at Austin and made a significant contribution to enabling electric aircraft. The transport of electric power between the points of generation and use requires power cables. These cables must be smaller, lighter and provide a more predictable life than power cables used in stationary applications. Consequently, this investigation provided heretofore unavailable information supporting the safety and reliability of smaller lighter power cables for electrified aircraft. In addition, the research identified key additional engineering data needed to support quantitative reliability assessments. Important advances included: • Demonstrated that at least one manufacturer can make a novel, smaller, lighter power cable that is free from serious defects. • Developed and published an appropriate analytical construct to describe the life of this novel cable. This is a necessary step for use in aviation where the understanding of remaining life is critical. • Demonstrated thermal-mechanical aging that suggested 1000+ flights before the thermal-mechanical processes produced defects large enough that the defect growth was accelerated electrically. • Showed that electrical aging took place at two rates. The first possibly lasting weeks to months and the second possibly days to weeks. If robust, this provides a good diagnostic for cable replacement. • Demonstrated that the traditional electrical testing of cable materials using manufactured voids can be misleading due to the size of the voids. Emerging laser drilling technology permitted demonstration that the physics of failure in realistically small voids is different from that in the unrealistically large voids used in earlier research, which is very important for high-quality, high-performance, small aircraft cables. Although this project represents a significant contribution to the specifics of cable aging in the aircraft environment, important additional research remains to be completed, including: • Non-uniform thermal cycling by applying the heat from the center conductor to maximize thermal stress next to the core area where the electric gradient is the strongest. This builds on the uniform thermal cycling that has been completed. • The augmentation of the thermal-mechanical failure rate by electrical processes. Better understanding of these time constants strongly affects the ability to predict life. • Termination design: Terminations provide not only electrical reflection potential, but a location for a series arc fault and an area where ozone can diffuse into the center conductor and negatively affect cable insulation. • The abrasion and ozone resistance of the cable jacket. • Pressure cycling as an accelerant of thermal, mechanical, and/or electrical aging. • Possible methods for online PD detection and offline PD localization
REBa2Cu3Ox (REBCO) coated conductors are an enabling technology for >1 GHz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers that need >23.5 T solenoids, compact high-field fusion reactors beyond the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and 20 T class accelerator magnets. An in-depth understanding of stress and strain management is critically needed for these applications. Here, we report experimental data and an analysis of damages of REBCO-coated conductors in several scenarios relevant for their applications in high-field magnets and unique to their multi-layer thin film structure. The examined scenarios include failure induced by quench, failure induced by epoxy impregnation, and failure induced by a combination of epoxy impregnation and quench. The root cause is film blistering and peeling induced by thermally interfacial stresses characteristic of multilayered heteroepitaxial thin film structures on thick substrates utilized. The quantitative stress analysis is introduced using simple and easy to use formulas and clearly indicates how materials and structural characteristics affect the magnitude and the distribution of stresses and deflections. Finally, a simple method is introduced for removing degradation of REBCO coated conductors due to epoxy impregnation. Our data and analysis help our understanding of the practical limit of REBCO-coated conductors and can be utilized as a guidance for the physical design of REBCO coated conductors and high-current cables assembled from them and for minimizing damages.
Marshall Space Flight Center is involved in a wide variety of microgravity projects that require furnaces, with hot zone temperatures ranging from 300 C to 2300 C, requirements for gradient processing and rapid quench, and both semi-conductor and metal materials. On these types of projects, the thermal engineer is a key player in the design process. Microgravity furnaces present unique challenges to the thermal designer. One challenge is designing a sample containment assembly that achieves dual containment, yet allows a high radial heat flux. Another challenge is providing a high axial gradient but a very low radial gradient. These furnaces also present unique challenges to the thermal analyst. First, there are several orders of magnitude difference in the size of the thermal 'conductors' between various parts of the model. A second challenge is providing high fidelity in the sample model, and connecting the sample with the rest of the furnace model, yet maintaining some sanity in the number of total nodes in the model. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the challenges involved in designing and analyzing microgravity furnaces and how some of these challenges have been overcome. The thermal analysis tools presently used to analyze microgravity furnaces and will be listed. Challenges for the future and a description of future analysis tools will be given.
In the last few years, Marshall Space Flight Center has become heavily involved in a wide variety of microgravity projects that require furnaces, with hot zone temperatures ranging from 300 C to 2300 C, requirements for isothermal and gradient processing, and both semi-conductor and metal materials. On these types of projects, the thermal engineer is a key player in the design process. These furnaces present unique challenges to the thermal designer. One challenge is designing a sample containment system that achieves dual containment, yet allows a high radial heat flux. Another challenge is providing a high axial gradient but a very low radial gradient. These furnaces also present unique challenges to the thermal analyst. First, there are several orders of magnitude difference in the size of the thermal "conductors" between various parts of the model. A second challenge is providing high fidelity in the sample model, and connecting the sample with the rest of the furnace model, yet maintaining some sanity in the number of total nodes in the model. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the challenges involved in designing and analyzing microgravity furnaces and how some of these challenges have been overcome. The thermal analysis tools presently used to analyze microgravity furnaces and how they have been applied will be explained. Challenges for the future and a description of future analysis tools will be given.
This paper presents a simple, automated method to generate NODE and CONDUCTOR DATA for thermal match modes. The method uses personal computer spreadsheets to create SINDA inputs. It was developed in order to make SINDA modeling less time consuming and serves as an alternative to graphical methods. Anyone having some experience using a personal computer can easily implement this process. The user develops spreadsheets to automatically calculate capacitances and conductances based on material properties and dimensional data. The necessary node and conductor information is then taken from the spreadsheets and automatically arranged into the proper format, ready for insertion directly into the SINDA model. This technique provides a number of benefits to the SINDA user such as a reduction in the number of hand calculations, and an ability to very quickly generate a parametric set of NODE and CONDUCTOR DATA blocks. It also provides advantages over graphical thermal modeling systems by retaining the analyst's complete visibility into the thermal network, and by permitting user comments anywhere within the DATA blocks.
In the context of high-energy physics, the use of Nb 3 Sn superconducting magnets as a cost-effective and reliable technology depends on improvements in the following areas: long development and manufacturing cycles, conductor degradation after thermal cycling, long training, as well as a demonstration in accelerator magnets with a beam aperture of the full potential of modern Nb 3 Sn conductors. In short, performance, robustness, and cost are the three issues to be addressed. The Magnet Development project (MagDev) of the Swiss Accelerator Research and Technology initiative (CHART) at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) aims to contribute to the solutions to each of these issues, re-thinking the manufacturing and design process. Here in our program, every innovation is to be validated by means of a panoply of fast-turnaround tools: from non-powered and powered samples and coils, tested under background field, to low-field subscale magnets and high field short prototypes. This work presents one element in this panoply of R&D vehicles: a stress-managed Nb 3 Sn coil called BigBOX, impregnated with paraffin wax, and tested, through a collaboration with the Magnet Development Program of the United States (US-MDP), in the background field of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)’s common coils dipole DCC17.
Abstract Thermoelectric materials convert heat into electricity through thermally driven charge transport in solids or vice versa for cooling. To compete with conventional energy‐conversion technologies, a thermoelectric material must possess the properties of both an electrical conductor and a thermal insulator. However, these properties are normally mutually exclusive because of the interconnection between scattering mechanisms for charge carriers and phonons. Recent theoretical investigations on sub‐device scales have revealed that nanopillars attached to a membrane exhibit a multitude of local phonon resonances, spanning the full spectrum, that couple with the heat‐carrying phonons in the membrane and cause a reduction in the in‐plane thermal conductivity, with no expected change in the electrical properties because the nanopillars are outside the pathway of voltage generation and charge transport. Here this effect is demonstrated experimentally for the first time by investigating device‐scale suspended silicon membranes with GaN nanopillars grown on the surface. The nanopillars cause up to 21% reduction in the thermal conductivity while the power factor remains unaffected, thus demonstrating an unprecedented decoupling in the semiconductor's thermoelectric properties. The measured thermal conductivity behavior for coalesced nanopillars and corresponding lattice‐dynamics calculations provide evidence that the reductions are mechanistically tied to the phonon resonances. This finding paves the way for high‐efficiency solid‐state energy recovery and cooling.
This paper presents a brief overview of thermal analysis, evaluating the University of Arizona mirror design, for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) Pre-Phase A vehicle concept. Model building begins using Thermal Desktop(Tm), by Cullimore and Ring Technologies, to import a NASTRAN bulk data file from the structural model of the mirror assembly. Using AutoCAD(R) capabilities, additional surfaces are added to simulate the thermal aspects of the problem which, for due reason, are not part of the structural model. Surfaces are then available to accept thermophysical and thermo-optical properties. Thermal Desktop(Tm) calculates radiation conductors using Monte Carlo simulations. Then Thermal Desktop(Tm) generates the SINDA/Fluint input file having a one-to-one correspondence with the NASTRAN node and element definitions. A model is now available to evaluate the mirror design in the radiation dominated environment conduct parametric trade studies of the thermal design, and provide temperatures to the finite element structural model.
This paper presents a brief overview of thermal analysis, evaluating the University of Arizona mirror design, for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) Pre-Phase A vehicle concept. Model building begins using Thermal Desktop(TM), by Cullimore and Ring Technologies, to import a NASTRAN bulk data file from the structural model of the mirror assembly. Using AutoCAD(R) capabilities, additional surfaces are added to simulate the thermal aspects of the problem which, for due reason, are not part of the structural model. Surfaces are then available to accept thermophysical and thermo-optical properties. Thermal Desktop(TM) calculates radiation conductors using Monte Carlo simulations. Then Thermal Desktop(TM) generates the SINDA input file having a one-to-one correspondence with the NASTRAN node and element definitions. A model is now available to evaluate the mirror design in the radiation dominated environment, conduct parametric trade studies of the thermal design, and provide temperatures to the finite element structural model.