Heat pipe technology issues

Conference · Sun Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1984

OSTI ID:6977941

Merrigan, M A

Critical high temperature, high power applications in space nuclear power designs are near the current state of the art of heat pipe technology in terms of power density, operating temperature, and lifetime. Recent heat pipe development work at Los Alamos National Laboratory has involved performance testing of typical space reactor heat pipe designs to power levels in excess of 19 kW/cm/sup 2/ axially and 300 W/cm/sup 2/ radially at temperatures in the 1400 to 1500 K range. Operation at conditions in the 10 kW/cm/sup 2/ range has been sustained for periods of up to 1000 hours without evidence of performance degradation. The effective length for heat transport in these heat pipes was from 1.0 to 1.5 M. Materials used were molybdenum alloys with lithium employed as the heat pipe operating fluid. Shorter, somewhat lower power, molybdenum heat pipes have been life tested at Los Alamos for periods of greater than 25,000 hours at 1700 K with lithium and 20,000 hours at 1500/sup 0/K with sodium. These life test demonstrations and the attendant performance limit investigations provide an experimental basis for heat pipe application in space reactor design and represent the current state-of-the-art of high temperature heat pipe technology.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 6977941
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-84-1238; CONF-840113-8; ON: DE84011384
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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