Speaker
Calin Tarau
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)
Description
Alkali metal heat pipes are passive two-phase heat transfer devices that utilize alkali metals such as potassium and sodium to transfer heat at high temperatures (>300°C). Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) has a long history of developing unique high-temperature alkali metal heat pipes for wide variety of applications such as nuclear power, solar power, and thermal energy storage. This presentation will highlight several recent RD programs at ACT to develop high-temperature and high-power alkali metal heat pipe systems. Highlighted programs include:
- The development of a unique high-temperature multi-material heat pipe system for transporting heat from a nuclear reactor to a Stirling engine as part of the NASA/DOE FSP program. The system used sodium-Kovar thermosyphons and a sodium-Haynes 230 loop thermosyphon.
- Active development of high-power wicks for alkali metal heat pipes for cooling nuclear reactors. Wicks have shown >10x improvement over conventional wick design.
- Large high-power heat pipes and thermosyphons, power > 10kW.
- A high-temperature (>600°C) thermal storage system using alkali metal heat pipe technology.
- An alkali metal heat-pipe heat spreader and pulsating heat pipe for a particle receiver board in concentrated solar power that reduced peak temperature by 130°C.
For each program, the application, design, prototype, and experimental results will be highlighted.
Authors
Dr
Jeffrey Diebold
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)
Calin Tarau
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)
Dr
Sandeep Hatte
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)
Dr
Roopesh Kumar
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)
Dr
Nathan Van Velson
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)
Dr
David-Paul Schulze
(Advanced Cooling Technologies)