Fabricating the Solid Core Heatpipe Reactor
- Advanced Methods and Materials, Inc., 1190 Mountain View-Alviso Road, Suite P, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 (United States)
- NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama 35812 (United States)
The solid core heatpipe nuclear reactor has the potential to be the most dependable concept for the nuclear space power system. The design of the conversion system employed permits multiple failure modes instead of the single failure mode of other concepts. Regardless of the material used for the reactor, either stainless steel, high-temperature alloys, Nb1Zr, Tantalum Alloys or MoRe Alloys, making the solid core by machining holes in a large diameter billet is not satisfactory. This is because the large diameter billet will have large grains that are detrimental to the performance of the reactor due to grain boundary diffusion. The ideal fabrication method for the solid core is by hot isostatic pressure diffusion bonding (HIPing). By this technique, wrought fine-grained tubes of the alloy chosen are assembled into the final shape with solid cusps and seal welded so that there is a vacuum in between all surfaces to be diffusion bonded. This welded structure is then HIPed for diffusion bonding. A solid core made of Type 321 stainless steel has been satisfactorily produced by Advanced Methods and Materials and is undergoing evaluation by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
- OSTI ID:
- 20798019
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 813, Issue 1; Conference: 10. conference on thermophysics applications in microgravity; 23. symposium on space nuclear power and propulsion; 4. conference on human/robotic technology and the national vision for space exploration; 4. symposium on space colonization; 3. symposium on new frontiers and future concepts, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 12-16 Feb 2006; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2169259; (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
BONDING
DESIGN
DIFFUSION
ENERGY CONVERSION
GRAIN BOUNDARIES
HEAT PIPES
MACHINING
NASA
PERFORMANCE
POWER GENERATION
POWER SYSTEMS
REACTOR MATERIALS
REACTORS
SOLIDS
SPACE FLIGHT
STAINLESS STEELS
SURFACES
TANTALUM ALLOYS
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems