CHARACTERIZATION OF AN ACTIVELY COOLED METAL FOIL THERMAL RADIATION SHIELD

Journal Article · Fri Apr 09 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3422283· OSTI ID:21371784

Feller, J R; Salerno, L J ^[1]; Kashani, A; Helvensteijn, B P. M. ^[2]

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1. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 94035 (United States)
2. Atlas Scientific, San Jose, CA, 95120 (United States)

Zero boil-off (ZBO) or reduced boil-off (RBO) systems that involve active cooling of large cryogenic propellant tanks will most likely be required for future space exploration missions. For liquid oxygen or methane, such systems could be implemented using existing high technology readiness level (TRL) cryocoolers. However, for liquid hydrogen temperatures (approx20 K) no such coolers exist. In order to partially circumvent this technology gap, the concept of broad area cooling (BAC) has been developed, whereby a low mass thermal radiation shield could be maintained at temperatures around 100 K by steady circulation of cold pressurized gas through a network of narrow tubes. By this method it is possible to dramatically reduce the radiative heat leak to the 20 K tank. A series of experiments, designed to investigate the heat transfer capabilities of BAC systems, have been conducted at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC). Results of the final experiment in this series, investigating heat transfer from a metal foil film to a distributed cooling line, are presented here.

• OSTI ID: 21371784
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1218, Issue 1; Conference: International cryogenic materials conference (ICMC) on advances in cryogenic engineering materials, Tucson, AZ (United States), 28 Jun - 2 Jul 2009; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3422283; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
42 ENGINEERING
COOLING
COOLING SYSTEMS
CRYOGENICS
ENGINEERING
FOILS
HEAT EXCHANGERS
HEAT TRANSFER
HYDROGEN
METALS
TANKS
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0013-0065 K
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0065-0273 K
THERMAL MASS
THERMAL RADIATION
THERMAL SHIELDS
CONTAINERS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTS
ENERGY SYSTEMS
ENERGY TRANSFER
MASS
NONMETALS
RADIATIONS
SHIELDS
TEMPERATURE RANGE