Coupled thermal, electrical, and fluid flow analyses of AMTEC multitube cell with adiabatic side wall

Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1997 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.51953· OSTI ID:627653

Schock, A; Or, C ^[1]; Noravian, H ^[2]

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1. Orbital Sciences Corporation 20301 Century Blvd. Germantown, Maryland20874 (United States)
2. ANALYTIX Corporation Timonium, Maryland (United States)

The paper describes a novel OSC-generated methodology for analyzing the performance of multitube AMTEC (Alkali Metal Thermal-to-Electrical Conversion) cells, which are under development by AMPS (Advanced Modular Power Systems, Inc.) for the Air Force Phillips Laboratory (AFPL) and NASA{close_quote}s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), for possible application to the Pluto Express and other space missions. The OSC study was supported by the Department of Energy (DOE), and was strongly encouraged by JPL, AFPL, and AMPS. It resulted in an iterative procedure for the coupled solution of the interdependent thermal, electrical, and fluid flow differential and integral equations governing the performance of AMTEC cells and generators. The paper clarifies the OSC procedure by presenting detailed results of its application to an illustrative example of a converter cell with an adiabatic side wall, including the non-linear axial variation of temperature, pressure, open-circuit voltage, interelectrode voltage, current density, axial current, sodium mass flow, and power density. The next paper in these proceedings describes parametric results obtained by applying the same procedure to variations of the baseline adiabatic converter design, culminating in an OSC-recommended revised cell design. A subsequent paper in these proceedings extends the procedure to analyze a variety of OSC-designed radioisotope-heated generators employing non-adiabatic multitube AMTEC cells. {copyright} {ital 1997 American Institute of Physics.}

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 627653
• Report Number(s): CONF-970115-; ISSN 0094-243X; TRN: 9808M0073
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 387, Issue 1; Conference: Space technology and applications international forum (STAIF - 97), Albuquerque, NM (United States), 26-30 Jan 1997; Other Information: PBD: Jan 1997
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING NOT INCLUDED IN OTHER CATEGORIES
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
SPACE VEHICLES
THERMOELECTRIC GENERATORS
DESIGN
PLUTONIUM 238
POWER RANGE 10-100 W
RADIOISOTOPE HEAT SOURCES
FUEL CELLS
FLUID FLOW
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems