Status of NASA’s Advanced Radioisotope Power Conversion Technology Research and Development

Wong, Wayne A.; Anderson, David J.; Tuttle, Karen L.; Tew, Roy C.

doi:10.1063/1.2169211

Cited by 20 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The ASC was developed by Sunpower, Inc. under an NRA contract managed by GRC (Wong et al, 2006). Development of the ASC was planned to be a three-phase effort, resulting in the Frequency Test Bed, the ASC-1, and the ASC-2 in each successive phase.…”

Section: The Advanced Stirling Convertormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the generator did provide a significant increase in efficiency and thereby a reduction in plutonium inventory required compared to alternative radioisotope generators, it was felt that a Stirling generator would also need to improve the specific power for it to become widely accepted for space power applications. The development was redirected by NASA HQ in March 2006, to use the Advanced Stirling Convertor (ASC) that was being developed by Sunpower, Inc. under a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) contract with GRC (Wong, 2006). This change has resulted in the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) that is projected to have a specific power of 7.0 We/kg for the QU (Chan, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

GRC Supporting Technology for NASA's Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG)

Schreiber

Thieme²

2008

AIP Conference Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: The Advanced Stirling Convertormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

GRC Supporting Technology for NASA's Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG)

Schreiber

Thieme²

2008

AIP Conference Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…5) currently being developed under the NASA NRA project (Wong, et al, 2006). The NRA design makes use of the high-temperature MarM-247 heater head material to allow for operation at 850 °C.…”

Section: Asc Design For Generator Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SRG110 as previously reported (Cockfield, 2002) was in the process of fabricating the EU for assembly and test by the Fall of 2006 and was initiating the design of the Qualification Unit using the Technology Demonstration Convertor (TDC). However, with the significant advances in the higher specific power Advanced Stirling Convertor (ASC) demonstrated in the NASA Research Announcement (NRA)-funded project (Wong, et al, 2006), the SRG110 program was redirected in May 2006 to integrate the ASCs into the EU for assembly and test by March 2008 (Misra, 2006). The ASCs will be produced by Sunpower, Inc. in the NASA NRA project managed by GRC and delivered to the ASRG program as Government Furnished Equipment (GFE).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator for Space Exploration

Chan

Wood²,

Schreiber

2007

AIP Conference Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…17,18 The real application that has been implemented is in space missions by NASA in the form radioisotopic decay thermoelectric generators (RTGs). 19,20 Despite the interesting application of thermoelectric device, the efficiency of the device is still too low for advanced application because low thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT ) materials are used. Thus, there is a demand and effort on improvement of thermoelectric materials with a goal of ZT ∼4.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of Transition-Metal Nitride Thin Films for Thermoelectrics

Kerdsongpanya

2015

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thermoelectric devices are one of the promising energy harvesting technologies, because of their ability to convert heat (temperature gradient) to electricity by the Seebeck effect. Furthermore, thermoelectric devices can be used for cooling or heating by the inverse effect (Peltier effect). Since this conversion process is clean, with no emission of greenhouse gases during the process, this technology is attractive for recovering waste heat in automobiles or industries into usable electricity. However, the conversion efficiency of such devices is rather low due to fundamental materials limitations manifested through the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT ). Thus, there is high demand on finding materials with high ZT or strategies to improve ZT of materials.In this thesis, I discuss the basics of thermoelectrics and how to improve ZT of materials, including present-day strategies. Based on these ideas, I propose a new class of materials for thermoelectric applications: transition-metal nitrides, mainly ScN, CrN and their solid solutions. Here, I employed both experimental and theoretical methods to synthesize and study their thermoelectric properties. My study envisages ways for improving the thermoelectric figure of merit of ScN and possible new materials for thermoelectric applications.The results of my studies show that ScN is a promising thermoelectric material since it exhibits high thermoelectric power factor 2.5×10 −3 Wm −1 K −2 at 800 K, due to low metallic-like electrical resistivity while retained relatively large Seebeck coefficient. My studies on thermal conductivity of ScN also suggest a possibility to control thermal conductivity by tailoring the microstructure of ScN thin films. Furthermore, my theoretical studies on effects of impurities and stoichiometry on the electronic structure of ScN suggest the possibly to improve ScN ZT by stoichiometry tuning and doping. For CrN and Cr1−xScxN solid solution thin films, the results show that the power factor of CrN (8×10 −4Wm −1 K −2 at 770 K) can be retained for the solid solution Cr0.92Sc0.08N. Finally, density functional theory was used to enable a systematic predictionbased strategy for optimizing ScN thermoelectric properties via phase stability of solid solutions. Sc1−xGdxN and Sc1−xLuxN are stabilized as disordered solid solutions, while in the Sc-Nb-N and Sc-Ta-N systems, the inherently layered ternary structures ScNbN2 and ScTaN2 are stable. Svensk sammanfattningSedan den industriella revolutionen har fossila bränslen varit vår huvudkälla till energi i motorer för transport, elproduktion och uppvärmning av byggnader. Eftersom mänskligheten och vår teknik växer för varje år som går, fortsätter efterfrågan på fossila bränslen att öka. Med tanke på att fossila bränslen inte är förnybara, riskerar vi att de tar slut. Dessutom är resultatet av denna ständiga förbränning av fossila bränslen generering av växthusgaser, t.ex. kolmonoxid och koldioxid, som orsakar klimatförändringar, som ett ytterligare problem. Således finns det ett ökande behov...

show abstract

Status of NASA’s Advanced Radioisotope Power Conversion Technology Research and Development

Cited by 20 publications

References 9 publications

GRC Supporting Technology for NASA's Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG)

GRC Supporting Technology for NASA's Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG)

Development of Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator for Space Exploration

Design of Transition-Metal Nitride Thin Films for Thermoelectrics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About