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Results for “Perfect thermal contact”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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8 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

Measurement of total hemispherical emissivity of contaminated mirror surfaces

The effects of dust contamination on the total hemispherical emissivity (THE) of a 1.5-inch-diameter Al/MgF2-coated telescope mirror are investigated experimentally. The THE is determined by means of cooling-rate measurements in the temperature range 10-14.5 C in a vacuum of 100 ntorr or better. Photographs and drawings of the experimental setup are provided, and results for 11 dust levels are presented in tables and graphs. It is shown that dust has a significant effect on THE, but the experimental losses are only about half those predicted for perfectly black dust in perfect thermal contact with the mirror surface.

Facey, T. A.↗
DOE OSTI2026

A variational mimetic finite difference method for elliptic interface problems on non-matching polytopal meshes with geometric interface inconsistencies

A new variational mimetic finite difference method for elliptic interface problems with perfect and imperfect thermal contacts on non-matching polytopal meshes with geometric interface inconsistencies is developed and analyzed theoretically and numerically. The method is defined on multiple non-matching submeshes with gaps and overlaps along their interfaces. The discrete equations are derived from a minimization problem for the augmented Dirichlet functional. For a perfect thermal contact, the functional uses a modified mimetic gradient with extended stencil which couples unknowns from both sides of an interface, as well as penalty terms to enforce weak continuity of temperature across the interface. The method leads to a symmetric positive definite matrix for any scaling of the penalty terms. For an imperfect thermal contact, the Dirichlet functional is supplemented with a quadratic jump term along the interface related to the interface thermal resistance. We prove that the method conserves the total heat flux across each interface. In conclusion, the obtained results are verified with numerical experiments showing convergence in the discrete L 2 and L ∞ norms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2004

Aerothermal Performance Constraint Analysis of Sharp Nosecaps and Leading Edges

The main objective of this work is to predict the Aerothermal Performance Constraint (APC) for a class of Crew Transfer Vehicles (CTV) with shap noses and wing leading edges made out of UHTC which is a family of Ultra High Temperature Ceramics materials developed at NASA Ames. The APC is based on the theoretical temperature limit of the material which is usually encountered at the CTV nose or wing leading edge. The APC places a lower limit on the trajectory of the CTV in the altitude velocity space. The APC is used as one of the constraints in developing reentry and abort trajectories for the CTV. The trajectories are then used to generate transient thermal response of the nosecaps and wing leading edges which are represented as either a one piece of UHTC or two piece (UHTC + RCC) with perfect axial contact. The final paper will include more details about the analysis procedure and will also include results for reentry and abort design trajectories.

Rizk, Yehia↗
NASA NTRS1994

Modeling Thermal Contact Resistance

One difficulty in using cryocoolers is making good thermal contact between the cooler and the instrument being cooled. The connection is often made through a bolted joint. The temperature drop associated with this joint has been the subject of many experimental and theoretical studies. The low temperature behavior of dry joints have shown some anomalous dependence on the surface condition of the mating parts. There is also some doubts on how well one can extrapolate from the test samples to predicting the performance of a real system. Both finite element and analytic models of a simple contact system have been developed. The model assumes (a) the contact is dry (contact limited to a small portion of the total available area and the spaces in-between the actual contact patches are perfect insulators), (b) contacts are clean (conductivity of the actual contact is the same as the bulk), (c) small temperature gradients (the bulk conductance may be assumed to be temperature independent), (d) the absolute temperature is low (thermal radiation effects are ignored), and (e) the dimensions of the nominal contact area are small compared to the thickness of the bulk material (the contact effects are localized near the contact). The models show that in the limit of actual contact area much less than the nominal area (a much less than A), that the excess temperature drop due to a single point of contact scales as a(exp -1/2). This disturbance only extends a distance approx. A(exp 1/2) into the bulk material. A group of identical contacts will result in an excess temperature drop that scales as n(exp -1/2), where n is the number of contacts and n dot a is constant. This implies that flat rough surfaces will have a lower excess temperature drop than flat polished surfaces.

Kittel, Peter↗
NASA NTRS1985

Recombination phenomena in high efficiency silicon solar cells

The dominant recombination phenomena which limit the highest efficiency attainable in silicon solar cells under terrestrial sunlight are reviewed. The ultimate achievable efficiency is limited by the two intrinsic recombination mechanisms, the interband Auger recombination and interband Radiative recombination, both of which occur in the entire cell body but principally in the base layer. It is suggested that an optimum (26%) cell design is one with lowly doped 50 to 100 micron thick base, a perfect BSF, and zero extrinsic recombination such as the thermal mechanism at recombination centers the Shockley-Read-Hall process (SRH) in the bulk, on the surface and at the interfaces. The importance of recombination at the interfaces of a high-efficiency cell is demonstrated by the ohmic contact on the back surface whose interface recombination velocity is infinite. The importance of surface and interface recombination is demonstrated by representing the auger and radiative recombination losses by effective recombination velocities. It is demonstrated that the three highest efficiency cells may all be limited by the SRH recombination losses at recombination centers in the base layer.

Sah, C. T.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Experiment 1: Orbital Processing of High-Quality Zn-Alloyed CdTe Compound Semiconductors

Zinc-alloyed cadmium telluride (Zn:CdTe) crystals were grown in unit gravity and in microgravity for comparative analysis. Two crystals were grown on USML-1/STS-50 in 1992, and two additional crystals were grown on USML-2/STS-73 in 1995. The Crystal Growth Furnace (CGF) in the seeded Bridgman-Stockbarger crystal growth geometry was utilized on both missions. Crystals grown on USML-1/STS-50 were found to have solidified with partial wall contact due to the near-absence of the hydrostatic pressure in microgravity, a residual g-vector that was not axial, and the nonwetting sample/ampoule wetting conditions. Crystals grown on USML-2/STS-73 included: a sample/ampoule identical to the USML-1/STS-73 sample/ampoule, with the addition of a restraining spring to simulate hydrostatic pressure internally, and a tapered ampoule which accomplished 2.2 cm of crystal growth without wall contact. Infrared transmission of all ground and flight samples was found to be 63-66 percent, very close to the theoretical 66 percent, suggesting good stoichiometric control. Infrared microscopy confirmed that the primary precipitates were Te and their size (1-10 microns) and density suggested that the flight- and ground-base samples experienced similar thermal histories. Longitudinal macrosegregation, calculated using scaling analysis, was predicted to be low. Nearly diffusion controlled growth was achieved even in unit gravity and macrosegregation data could be fit with a diffusion controlled model. Radial segregation was monitored and was found to vary with fraction solidified, particularly through the shoulder region, where the sample cross section was varying significantly. It was also disturbed in the flight samples in regions where asymmetric wall contact was noted. In regions where a steady state was established, the radial segregation was invariant within our experimental measurement error. Flight samples were found to be much higher in structural perfection than samples processed in unit gravity under identical growth conditions. In regions where solidification had occurred without wall contact, the free surfaces evidenced virtually no twinning, although twins appeared in the flight samples in regions of wall contact and were pervasive in the ground samples. These results were confirmed using optical microscopy and synchrotron x-ray white beam topography. Full-width half-maximum rocking curve widths (FWHM), recorded in arc-seconds, were significantly reduced from 20 a-s (1 g) to 9 a-s (micro-g) for the best regions of the crystals. The 9 a-s (FWHM) rocking curve value in the unconfined flight samples equals the best value reported terrestrially for this material. The ground samples exhibited a fully developed (111)[110] dislocation mosaic structure, whereas dislocations within the flight samples were discrete and no mosaic structure was evident. The defect density was quantitatively reduced from 75,000 (1 g) to 800 (micro-g) +/-50 percent. Dislocation etch pit density results were confirmed using transmission synchrotron white beam and monochromated beam topography. The low defect density is thought to have resulted from the near absence of hydrostatic pressure, which allowed the molten boule to solidify with little or no wall contact. This minimized the transfer of hoop stresses during solidification and post-solidification processing.

Larson, D. J., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Orbital processing of high-quality CdTe compound semiconductors

CdZnTe crystals were grown in one-g and in micro-g for comparative analysis. The two micro-g crystals were grown in the Crystal Growth Furnace during the First United States Microgravity Laboratory mission (USML-1). The samples were analyzed for chemical homogeneity, structural perfection, and optoelectronic performance (infrared transmission). Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) transmission of both ground and flight materials showed that the infrared transmission was close to theoretical, 63% versus 66%, suggesting that the material was close to the stochiometric composition during both the ground and flight experiments. Infrared microscopy confirmed that the principal precipitates were Te and their size (1-10 microns) and density suggested that the primary flight and ground base samples experienced similar cooling rates. Macrosegregation was predicted, using scaling analysis, to be low even in one-g crystals and this was confirmed experimentally, with nearly diffusion controlled growth achieved even in the partial mixing regime on the ground. Radial segregation was monitored in the flight samples and was found to vary with fraction solidified, but was disturbed due to the asymmetric grvitational and thermal fields experienced by the flight samples. The flight samples, however, were found to be much higher in structural perfection than the ground samples produced in the same furnace under identical growth conditions except for the gravitational level. Rocking curve widths were found to be substantially reduced, from 20/35 (one-g) to 9/20 (micro-g) for the best regions of the crystals. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 9 arc seconds is as good as the best reported terrestrially for this material. The ground samples were found to have a fully developed mosaic structure consisting of subgrains, whereas the flight sample dislocations were discrete and no mosaic substructure was evident. The defect density was reduced from 50-100,000 (one-g) to 500-25000 EPD (micro-g). These results were confirmed using rocking curve analysis, synchrotron topography, and etch pit analysis. The low dislocation density is thought to have resulted from the near-absence of hydrostatic pressure which allowed the melt to solidify with minimum or no wall contact, resulting in very low stress being exerted on the crystal during growth or during post-solidification cooling.

Larson, David J., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Jet-Intracluster Medium Interactions of the Head Tail Radio Galaxy 3C 129

The 50 ksec XMM observations of the galaxy cluster 3C 129 were taken as scheduled, and the data are of good quality. We analyzed the data in the following way. After standard cleaning, we flat-fielded the XMM surface brightness maps. Combining the data from the EPIC MOS and PN Camera CCDs, we performed a cross-correlation analysis of the X-ray surface brightness distribution with the 1.4 GHz VLA radio map. We found evidence for cavities in the X-ray emitting Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM) associated with the radio tail of the head-tail radio galaxy 3C 129. This discovery is very interesting as it excludes the presence of a large fraction of thermal plasma in the radio tail. Together with the observation of an apparent pressure mismatch between the radio plasma and the ICM, and an upper limit on the magnetic field inside the radio tail (from the radio spectral indices map) the observation implies that the tail pressure is dominated either by low-energy electrons/positrons, or, by relativistic protons. Furthermore, we studied the energy spectrum of an X-ray "hot-spot" associated with the head of the radio galaxy 3C 129. It seems likely that the X-ray hot-spot originates from shocked gas in front of the radio galaxy. , The analysis turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated. The main reason is the lack of a comprehensive, publicly available background model that is key for the analysis of extended sources. Small groups like our do not have the man-power to come up with a background model themselves. We used the model from Read & Ponman (A&A 409, 395, 2003). However, the background subtracted X-ray surface brightness maps show a bright ring in the outer 20% of the camera. We tried to get rid of this ring and contacted the XMM helpdesk and Read & Ponman, the authors of the background paper. However, up to this day, we did not entirely succeed to remove the brightness enhancement at the outer parts of the camera. Unfortunately, our results are somewhat sensitive to the uncertainty, as the radio galaxy 3C 129 is very large and occupies a rather large fraction of the XMM field of view. We are now working on a paper describing the results. The paper will include a detailed discussion of the uncertainties associated with the non- perfect background subtraction.

Krawczynski, Henric S. W.↗