Steady-state temperature predictions for general purpose heat source in various environments

Conference · Wed Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1998

OSTI ID:20002740

Or, C T; Carpenter, R T

A detailed 3-D General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) model was created to predict the steady-state temperatures in vacuum and in cover gases such as helium, argon, xenon, nitrogen, and air. This would cover the cases when the GPHS is in normal operations, and operating in a gas environment during storage, shipment or launch. From the analytical results, iridium clad is the only GPHS component of concern. All other GPHS components are far from exceeding their temperature limits. Graphs were created for the critical clad temperature predictions from the readily available aeroshell surface temperature and thermal power. Equivalent conductances from clad to aeroshell were also created for the users to directly incorporate a 2-node per GPHS model in their analysis model. For the cases of highly concentrated heat load when all the heat flows through one aeroshell surface, the temperature difference between the aeroshell surfaces is large. The 2-node per GPHS model may not be sufficient. A 7-node per GPHS model will significantly improve the aeroshell temperature predictions and consequently will improve the clad temperature predictions. Conductances and modeling methodology for this 7-node per GPHS model are also included. The simple GPHS models will greatly reduce computation time and modeling complexity in GPHS applications and still provide clad temperature prediction accuracy to within 5 C.

• Research Organization: Orbital Sciences Corp., Germantown, MD (US)
• OSTI ID: 20002740
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES
IRIDIUM
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems
PLUTONIUM OXIDES
PROTECTIVE COATINGS
RADIOISOTOPE HEAT SOURCES
THERMAL ANALYSIS