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Results for “Perfect thermal contact”

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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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

Measurement of total hemispherical emissivity of contaminated mirror surfaces

The effects of dust contamination on the total hemispherical emissivity (THE) of a 1.5-inch-diameter Al/MgF2-coated telescope mirror are investigated experimentally. The THE is determined by means of cooling-rate measurements in the temperature range 10-14.5 C in a vacuum of 100 ntorr or better. Photographs and drawings of the experimental setup are provided, and results for 11 dust levels are presented in tables and graphs. It is shown that dust has a significant effect on THE, but the experimental losses are only about half those predicted for perfectly black dust in perfect thermal contact with the mirror surface.

Facey, T. A.↗
DOE OSTI2026

A variational mimetic finite difference method for elliptic interface problems on non-matching polytopal meshes with geometric interface inconsistencies

A new variational mimetic finite difference method for elliptic interface problems with perfect and imperfect thermal contacts on non-matching polytopal meshes with geometric interface inconsistencies is developed and analyzed theoretically and numerically. The method is defined on multiple non-matching submeshes with gaps and overlaps along their interfaces. The discrete equations are derived from a minimization problem for the augmented Dirichlet functional. For a perfect thermal contact, the functional uses a modified mimetic gradient with extended stencil which couples unknowns from both sides of an interface, as well as penalty terms to enforce weak continuity of temperature across the interface. The method leads to a symmetric positive definite matrix for any scaling of the penalty terms. For an imperfect thermal contact, the Dirichlet functional is supplemented with a quadratic jump term along the interface related to the interface thermal resistance. We prove that the method conserves the total heat flux across each interface. In conclusion, the obtained results are verified with numerical experiments showing convergence in the discrete L 2 and L ∞ norms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2014

Heat transmission between a profiled nanowire and a thermal bath

Thermal transport through profiled and abrupt contacts between a nanowire and a reservoir has been investigated by thermal conductance measurements. It is demonstrated that above 1 K the transmission coefficients are identical between abrupt and profiled junctions. This shows that the thermal transport is principally governed by the nanowire itself rather than by the resistance of the thermal contact. These results are perfectly compatible with the previous theoretical models. The thermal conductance measured at sub-Kelvin temperatures is discussed in relation to the universal value of the quantum of thermal conductance.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Thermal link design for conduction cooling of SRF cavities using cryocoolers

Superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities with quality factors ~1010 near 4 K have potential to be cooled using re-generative-cycle cryocoolers. Contrary to using liquid helium, cry-ogen-free operation can be realized by conductively linking a cavity to a cryocooler. The cavity-cryocooler thermal link needs careful design for balancing cooling capacity of the cryocooler with the dissipation rate in the cavity. We present a thermal analysis of a conduction-cooled SRF cavity that identifies the link thermal con-ductance requirement. The analysis uses published or expected RF dissipation characteristics of an Nb3Sn coated niobium cavity and in-house measured cooling capacity of a commercial pulse tube cryocooler. We describe mechanical design of a link that is con-structed using commercial high-purity aluminum and facilitates bolted-connection to elliptical SRF cavities. The thermal perfor-mance of the link is assessed by finite element simulations, taking into account temperature dependent thermal conductivities and measured thermal contact resistance of aluminum and niobium. The link is shown to support operation at an accelerating gradient of 10 MV/m with the lowest-known ‘perfect’ Nb3Sn surface re-sistance (10 nΩ) and also under non-ideal cases that assume certain static heat leak into the system and non-perfect Nb3Sn coatings

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
NASA NTRS2004

Aerothermal Performance Constraint Analysis of Sharp Nosecaps and Leading Edges

The main objective of this work is to predict the Aerothermal Performance Constraint (APC) for a class of Crew Transfer Vehicles (CTV) with shap noses and wing leading edges made out of UHTC which is a family of Ultra High Temperature Ceramics materials developed at NASA Ames. The APC is based on the theoretical temperature limit of the material which is usually encountered at the CTV nose or wing leading edge. The APC places a lower limit on the trajectory of the CTV in the altitude velocity space. The APC is used as one of the constraints in developing reentry and abort trajectories for the CTV. The trajectories are then used to generate transient thermal response of the nosecaps and wing leading edges which are represented as either a one piece of UHTC or two piece (UHTC + RCC) with perfect axial contact. The final paper will include more details about the analysis procedure and will also include results for reentry and abort design trajectories.

Rizk, Yehia↗
NASA NTRS1994

Modeling Thermal Contact Resistance

One difficulty in using cryocoolers is making good thermal contact between the cooler and the instrument being cooled. The connection is often made through a bolted joint. The temperature drop associated with this joint has been the subject of many experimental and theoretical studies. The low temperature behavior of dry joints have shown some anomalous dependence on the surface condition of the mating parts. There is also some doubts on how well one can extrapolate from the test samples to predicting the performance of a real system. Both finite element and analytic models of a simple contact system have been developed. The model assumes (a) the contact is dry (contact limited to a small portion of the total available area and the spaces in-between the actual contact patches are perfect insulators), (b) contacts are clean (conductivity of the actual contact is the same as the bulk), (c) small temperature gradients (the bulk conductance may be assumed to be temperature independent), (d) the absolute temperature is low (thermal radiation effects are ignored), and (e) the dimensions of the nominal contact area are small compared to the thickness of the bulk material (the contact effects are localized near the contact). The models show that in the limit of actual contact area much less than the nominal area (a much less than A), that the excess temperature drop due to a single point of contact scales as a(exp -1/2). This disturbance only extends a distance approx. A(exp 1/2) into the bulk material. A group of identical contacts will result in an excess temperature drop that scales as n(exp -1/2), where n is the number of contacts and n dot a is constant. This implies that flat rough surfaces will have a lower excess temperature drop than flat polished surfaces.

Kittel, Peter↗
DOE OSTI2019

Effective Thermal Contact Resistance of Regularly Textured Bodies in the Presence of Intercontact Heat-Conducting Media and the Phenomenon of Thermal Rectification

We compute the effective thermal contact resistance of a pair of materials formed by AISI 304 stainless steel and 200 nickel alloy in the presence of a periodic array of gaps filled with a heat-conducting medium (argon, water, helium, oxygen, or air) on the interface of these materials. In the nondeformed state, the surface of AISI 304 stainless steel has a microtextured topography formed by regularly located grooves of identical shapes, while the surface of 200 nickel alloy is perfectly flat. We estimate the level of thermal rectification for structures of this kind for different values of the applied mechanical and thermal loads and the maximal height of the surface grooves.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Atomistic insights into the heat conductance across the interfaces between erythritol and different metals: A non-equilibrium molecular dynamics study

The heat conductance across the interface between a phase change material (PCM) and the metal shell is important for thermal design of latent heat storage systems. Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations were carried out in this work to unravel, at the atomistic level, the interfacial heat conductance mechanisms between erythritol (the most promising medium-temperature polyol PCM) and two different metals (i.e., copper and aluminum). The interfacial contact ratio was introduced as a parameter to represent different contact conditions at the interfaces, for example, different surface roughness levels of the metals. It was found that with the increase of interfacial contact ratio, the temperature difference between the erythritol/metal interfaces decreases, whereas the interfacial heat transfer coefficient increases gradually. At the perfect contact condition, i.e., the interfacial contact ratio reaches 100%, the interfacial heat transfer coefficients across the erythritol/Cu and erythritol/Al interfaces were predicted to be 398 ± 26 MW/m 2 K and 544 ± 11 MW/m 2 K, respectively. The interfacial heat conductance of erythritol/Al is better than that of erythritol/Cu. The mismatch of atomic spectral density across the interfaces between erythritol and the two metals was analyzed and distinguished. These results could guide the selection of packaging materials and the thermal design of erythritol-based latent heat storage systems.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS1985

Recombination phenomena in high efficiency silicon solar cells

The dominant recombination phenomena which limit the highest efficiency attainable in silicon solar cells under terrestrial sunlight are reviewed. The ultimate achievable efficiency is limited by the two intrinsic recombination mechanisms, the interband Auger recombination and interband Radiative recombination, both of which occur in the entire cell body but principally in the base layer. It is suggested that an optimum (26%) cell design is one with lowly doped 50 to 100 micron thick base, a perfect BSF, and zero extrinsic recombination such as the thermal mechanism at recombination centers the Shockley-Read-Hall process (SRH) in the bulk, on the surface and at the interfaces. The importance of recombination at the interfaces of a high-efficiency cell is demonstrated by the ohmic contact on the back surface whose interface recombination velocity is infinite. The importance of surface and interface recombination is demonstrated by representing the auger and radiative recombination losses by effective recombination velocities. It is demonstrated that the three highest efficiency cells may all be limited by the SRH recombination losses at recombination centers in the base layer.

Sah, C. T.↗
DOE OSTI2019

One-directional thermal transport in densely aligned single-wall carbon nanotube films

Individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess extremely high thermal conductivities. However, the thermal conductivities and their anisotropy of macroscopic assemblies of CNTs have so far remained small. Here, we report the results of directional thermal transport measurements on a nearly perfectly aligned CNT film fabricated via controlled vacuum filtration. We found the thermal conductivity to be 43 ± 2.2 W m -1 K -1 with a record-high thermal anisotropy of 500. From the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity and its agreement with the atomistic phonon transport calculation, we conclude that the effect of intertube thermal resistance on heat conduction in the alignment direction is negligible because of the large contact area between CNTs. These observations thus represent ideal unidirectional thermal transport, i.e., the thermal conductivity of the film is determined solely by that of individual CNTs.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2013

Experimental and numerical study of the effective thermal conductivity of silica nanocomposites with thermal boundary resistance

The thermal interface resistance at the macro scale is mainly described by the physical gap between two interfaces and constriction resistance due to this gap. The small gaps between the two material faces makes up the majority of thermal interface resistance at the macro scale. So, most of the studies have been focused on characterizing effect of surface geometry and material properties to thermal interface resistance. This resistance is more widely known as thermal contact resistance, represented with Rc. There are various models to predict thermal contact resistance at macro scale. These models predict thermal resistance Rc for given two materials by utilizing their bulk thermomechanical properties. Although, Rc represents thermal resistance accurately for macro size contacts between two metals, it is not suitable to describe interface resistance of particles in modern TIMs, aka particulate composites. The particles inside recently available TIMs are micron size and with effort to further increase surface area this particle size is approaching nano scale. At this small scale, Rc does not accurately predict thermal interface, as it is very difficult to characterize the surface topography. The thermal discontinuity at perfectly bonded interface of two dissimilar materials is termed as thermal boundary resistance (Rb) or Kapitza resistance. The macroscopic assumptions that thermal discontinuity only exists due to gaps and surface geometry leads to substantial error in determining interface thermal properties at micron and nano scale. The phenomenon of thermal boundary resistance is an inherent material property and arises due to fundamental mechanism of thermal transport. For metal-matrix particulate composites, Rb plays more important role than Rc. The free flowing nature of the polymer would eliminate most of the gaps between the two materials at their interface. This means almost all of the thermal resistance at particle/matrix interface would occur due to Rb. The current study presents experimental study of thermal boundary resistance for silica nano particles embedded inside epoxy resin. The bulk conductivity of the sample is measured and Rc is back calculated using Hasselman-Johnson s (H-J) equation. The numerical validation of the equation is also presented, including extrapolation study to predict effective conductivity of the nanocomposite TIM.

silica nanocomposites↗
NASA NTRS1998

Experiment 1: Orbital Processing of High-Quality Zn-Alloyed CdTe Compound Semiconductors

Zinc-alloyed cadmium telluride (Zn:CdTe) crystals were grown in unit gravity and in microgravity for comparative analysis. Two crystals were grown on USML-1/STS-50 in 1992, and two additional crystals were grown on USML-2/STS-73 in 1995. The Crystal Growth Furnace (CGF) in the seeded Bridgman-Stockbarger crystal growth geometry was utilized on both missions. Crystals grown on USML-1/STS-50 were found to have solidified with partial wall contact due to the near-absence of the hydrostatic pressure in microgravity, a residual g-vector that was not axial, and the nonwetting sample/ampoule wetting conditions. Crystals grown on USML-2/STS-73 included: a sample/ampoule identical to the USML-1/STS-73 sample/ampoule, with the addition of a restraining spring to simulate hydrostatic pressure internally, and a tapered ampoule which accomplished 2.2 cm of crystal growth without wall contact. Infrared transmission of all ground and flight samples was found to be 63-66 percent, very close to the theoretical 66 percent, suggesting good stoichiometric control. Infrared microscopy confirmed that the primary precipitates were Te and their size (1-10 microns) and density suggested that the flight- and ground-base samples experienced similar thermal histories. Longitudinal macrosegregation, calculated using scaling analysis, was predicted to be low. Nearly diffusion controlled growth was achieved even in unit gravity and macrosegregation data could be fit with a diffusion controlled model. Radial segregation was monitored and was found to vary with fraction solidified, particularly through the shoulder region, where the sample cross section was varying significantly. It was also disturbed in the flight samples in regions where asymmetric wall contact was noted. In regions where a steady state was established, the radial segregation was invariant within our experimental measurement error. Flight samples were found to be much higher in structural perfection than samples processed in unit gravity under identical growth conditions. In regions where solidification had occurred without wall contact, the free surfaces evidenced virtually no twinning, although twins appeared in the flight samples in regions of wall contact and were pervasive in the ground samples. These results were confirmed using optical microscopy and synchrotron x-ray white beam topography. Full-width half-maximum rocking curve widths (FWHM), recorded in arc-seconds, were significantly reduced from 20 a-s (1 g) to 9 a-s (micro-g) for the best regions of the crystals. The 9 a-s (FWHM) rocking curve value in the unconfined flight samples equals the best value reported terrestrially for this material. The ground samples exhibited a fully developed (111)[110] dislocation mosaic structure, whereas dislocations within the flight samples were discrete and no mosaic structure was evident. The defect density was quantitatively reduced from 75,000 (1 g) to 800 (micro-g) +/-50 percent. Dislocation etch pit density results were confirmed using transmission synchrotron white beam and monochromated beam topography. The low defect density is thought to have resulted from the near absence of hydrostatic pressure, which allowed the molten boule to solidify with little or no wall contact. This minimized the transfer of hoop stresses during solidification and post-solidification processing.

Larson, D. J., Jr.↗
DOE OSTI2018

Algebraic motion of vertically displacing plasmas

In this paper, the vertical motion of a tokamak plasma is analytically modelled during its non-linear phase by a free-moving current-carrying rod inductively coupled to a set of fixed conducting wires or a cylindrical conducting shell. The solutions capture the leading term in a Taylor expansion of the Green's function for the interaction between the plasma column and the surrounding vacuum vessel. The plasma shape and profiles are assumed not to vary during the vertical drifting phase such that the plasma column behaves as a rigid body. In the limit of perfectly conducting structures, the plasma is prevented to come in contact with the wall due to steep effective potential barriers created by the induced Eddy currents. Resistivity in the wall allows the equilibrium point to drift towards the vessel on the slow timescale of flux penetration. The initial exponential motion of the plasma, understood as a resistive vertical instability, is succeeded by a non-linear “sinking” behaviour shown to be algebraic and decelerating. Finally, the acceleration of the plasma column often observed in experiments is thus concluded to originate from an early sharing of toroidal current between the core, the halo plasma, and the wall or from the thermal quench dynamics precipitating loss of plasma current.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Strain control of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor structures on silicon (111) by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy

This paper reports on the use of plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy of AlGaN/GaN-based high electron mobility transistor structures grown on 4 in. Si (111) substrates. In situ measurements of wafer curvature during growth proved to be a very powerful method to analyze the buffer layer's thickness dependent strain. The Ga/N ratio at the beginning of growth of the GaN buffer layer is the critical parameter to control the compressive strain of the entire grown structure. An engineered amount of compressive strain must be designed into the structure to perfectly compensate for the tensile strain caused by differences in the thermal expansion coefficient between the epi-layer and substrate during sample cool down from growth temperatures. A maximum film thickness of 4.2 {mu}m was achieved without the formation of any cracks and a negligible bow of the wafers below 10 {mu}m. Measurement of the as-grown wafers revealed depth profiles of the charge carrier concentration comparable to values achieved on SiC substrates and mobility values of the two dimensional electron gas in the range 1230 to 1350 cm{sup 2}/Vs at a charge carrier concentration of 6.5-7 10{sup 12}/cm{sup 2}. First results on processed wafers with 2 {mu}m thick buffer layer indicate very promising results with a resistance of the buffer, measured on 200 {mu}m long contacts with 15 {mu}m pitch, in the range of R > 10{sup 9}{Omega} at 100 V and breakdown voltages up to 550 V.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Thermal stability of curved ray tomography for corrosion monitoring

Guided wave tomography is being developed as an effective tool for continuous monitoring of corrosion and erosion depth in pipelines. A pair of transmit- and receive-ring arrays of ultrasonic transducers encircles the pipe and delimits the section to be monitored. In curved ray tomography (CRT), the depth profile is estimated from the time delay matrix, Δτ, whose ij-th entry is the phase traveltime difference between the current and baseline signals measured between transducers i and j of the transmit and receive-ring arrays, respectively. Under perfectly stable experimental conditions, the non-zero entries of Δτ are only due to the occurrence of damage and provide a reliable input to CRT. However, during field operation, Δτ can develop non-zero entries due to a number of environmental changes ranging from temperature variations to degradation of transducer-pipe coupling and transducer intrinsic performance. Here, we demonstrate that these sources of instability can be eliminated by exploiting the spatial diversity of array measurements in conjunction with EMAT transducer technology which is intrinsically stable owing to its non-contact nature. The study is based on a full-scale experiment performed on a schedule 40, 8’ diameter, 3 m length steel pipe, monitored with two EMAT ring arrays. It is shown that for an irregularly shaped defect the proposed method yields maximum depth estimations that are as accurate as single point ultrasonic thickness gaging measurements and over a wide temperature range up to 175°C. The results indicate that advanced inversion schemes in combination with EMAT transduction offer great potential for continuously monitoring the progression of corrosion or erosion damage in the oil and gas industry.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS1994

Orbital processing of high-quality CdTe compound semiconductors

CdZnTe crystals were grown in one-g and in micro-g for comparative analysis. The two micro-g crystals were grown in the Crystal Growth Furnace during the First United States Microgravity Laboratory mission (USML-1). The samples were analyzed for chemical homogeneity, structural perfection, and optoelectronic performance (infrared transmission). Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) transmission of both ground and flight materials showed that the infrared transmission was close to theoretical, 63% versus 66%, suggesting that the material was close to the stochiometric composition during both the ground and flight experiments. Infrared microscopy confirmed that the principal precipitates were Te and their size (1-10 microns) and density suggested that the primary flight and ground base samples experienced similar cooling rates. Macrosegregation was predicted, using scaling analysis, to be low even in one-g crystals and this was confirmed experimentally, with nearly diffusion controlled growth achieved even in the partial mixing regime on the ground. Radial segregation was monitored in the flight samples and was found to vary with fraction solidified, but was disturbed due to the asymmetric grvitational and thermal fields experienced by the flight samples. The flight samples, however, were found to be much higher in structural perfection than the ground samples produced in the same furnace under identical growth conditions except for the gravitational level. Rocking curve widths were found to be substantially reduced, from 20/35 (one-g) to 9/20 (micro-g) for the best regions of the crystals. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 9 arc seconds is as good as the best reported terrestrially for this material. The ground samples were found to have a fully developed mosaic structure consisting of subgrains, whereas the flight sample dislocations were discrete and no mosaic substructure was evident. The defect density was reduced from 50-100,000 (one-g) to 500-25000 EPD (micro-g). These results were confirmed using rocking curve analysis, synchrotron topography, and etch pit analysis. The low dislocation density is thought to have resulted from the near-absence of hydrostatic pressure which allowed the melt to solidify with minimum or no wall contact, resulting in very low stress being exerted on the crystal during growth or during post-solidification cooling.

Larson, David J., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Jet-Intracluster Medium Interactions of the Head Tail Radio Galaxy 3C 129

The 50 ksec XMM observations of the galaxy cluster 3C 129 were taken as scheduled, and the data are of good quality. We analyzed the data in the following way. After standard cleaning, we flat-fielded the XMM surface brightness maps. Combining the data from the EPIC MOS and PN Camera CCDs, we performed a cross-correlation analysis of the X-ray surface brightness distribution with the 1.4 GHz VLA radio map. We found evidence for cavities in the X-ray emitting Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM) associated with the radio tail of the head-tail radio galaxy 3C 129. This discovery is very interesting as it excludes the presence of a large fraction of thermal plasma in the radio tail. Together with the observation of an apparent pressure mismatch between the radio plasma and the ICM, and an upper limit on the magnetic field inside the radio tail (from the radio spectral indices map) the observation implies that the tail pressure is dominated either by low-energy electrons/positrons, or, by relativistic protons. Furthermore, we studied the energy spectrum of an X-ray "hot-spot" associated with the head of the radio galaxy 3C 129. It seems likely that the X-ray hot-spot originates from shocked gas in front of the radio galaxy. , The analysis turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated. The main reason is the lack of a comprehensive, publicly available background model that is key for the analysis of extended sources. Small groups like our do not have the man-power to come up with a background model themselves. We used the model from Read & Ponman (A&A 409, 395, 2003). However, the background subtracted X-ray surface brightness maps show a bright ring in the outer 20% of the camera. We tried to get rid of this ring and contacted the XMM helpdesk and Read & Ponman, the authors of the background paper. However, up to this day, we did not entirely succeed to remove the brightness enhancement at the outer parts of the camera. Unfortunately, our results are somewhat sensitive to the uncertainty, as the radio galaxy 3C 129 is very large and occupies a rather large fraction of the XMM field of view. We are now working on a paper describing the results. The paper will include a detailed discussion of the uncertainties associated with the non- perfect background subtraction.

Krawczynski, Henric S. W.↗
DOE OSTI2013

Synergistic effect of cationic and anionic surfactants for the modification of Ca-montmorillonite

Highlights: ► The basal spacing of MMT–CTAB–SDS reaches 5.30 nm. ► MMT–CTAB–SDS shows perfect dispersion property and excellent heat resistance. ► SDS helped to improve the heat resistance and decrease the surface energy of the MMT–CTAB–SDS particles. - Abstract: The synergistic effect of cationic surfactant (CTAB) and anionic surfactant (SDS) for the modification of Ca-montmorillonite (Ca-MMT) has been developed, and the novel cation–anion modified organomontmorillonite (MMT–CTAB–SDS) was prepared. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicates that the interlayer spacing of montmorillonite was well expanded by the intercalation of CTAB and SDS and the basal spacing increased from 1.54 nm (Ca-MMT) to 5.30 nm (MMT–CTAB–SDS). Thermogravimetric analysis (TG) showed that the MMT–CTAB–SDS displayed excellent heat resistance. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis proved that the MMT–CTAB–SDS exhibited excellent dispersion property and the plates with few silicate layers can be observed. Contact angle tests indicated that the hydrophilicity of MMT–CTAB–SDS was lower than that of Ca-MMT and higher than that of MMT–CTAB. It was verified that SDS contributed to expanding the interlayer space, further improved the heat resistance of the MMT–CTAB and decreased the surface energy of the MMT–CTAB–SDS particles.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗