This paper describes facilities for filling and sealing high purity sodium heat pipes. The purpose of the work is to define a process for filling heat pipes with sodium that contains less than 10 ppm of oxygen. Small, cylindrical heat pipes were used to define the process. The work was performed for the NASA Lewis Research Stirling Space Power Converter program and was conducted under NASA’s Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI). Once the low‐oxygen filling process is defined, a large, complex heat pipe for a Stirling Space Power Converter (SSPC) will be loaded with sodium. The heat pipes were processed at a fill station on a High Temperature Sodium Loop circulating 180 kg (400 lb) of liquid sodium. The oxygen content of the sodium in the loop was below the detection limit of the analytical technique (the detection limit is about 6 ppm). The heat pipes were baked out and subjected to multiple flushes and extended soaks with liquid sodium before the final filling operation. A final purity of 8 ppm of oxygen was achieved. A process for performing the final closure of the fill tube was developed which maintained vacuum tight conditions in the heat pipe.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Filling and sealing sodium heat pipes


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Proceedings of the tenth symposium on space nuclear power and propulsion ; 1993 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 271 , 1 ; 533-538


    Publication date :

    1993-01-10


    Size :

    6 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    Filling and Sealing Sodium Heat Pipes

    Stelman, D. / Newcomb, J. C. / American Institute of Physics | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1993


    Theoretical Studies of Hard Filling in Loop Heat Pipes

    Adoni, Abhijit A. / Ambirajan, Amrit / Jasvanth, V. S. et al. | AIAA | 2010


    Life Test Approach for Refractory Metal/Sodium Heat Pipes

    Martin, James J. / Reid, Robert S. | American Institute of Physics | 2006


    Life Test Approach for Refractory Metal/Sodium Heat Pipes

    Martin, J. J. / Reid, R. S. / American Institute of Physics | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2006


    Sodium Heat Pipes for Space and Surface Fission Power

    Beard, Derek / Tarau, Calin / Anderson, William G. | AIAA | 2017