NASA has recently funded development of a 5 kW (or greater) free‐piston Stirling conversion system for reactor power systems. A nominal 5 kW converter allows two of these units to be dynamically balanced. A group of three dual‐convertor combinations would yield the desired 30 kW. The status of this program will be presented. Goals include a specific power in excess of 140 W/kg at the converter level, lifetime in excess of five years and AC output. The initial step is the design and development of a nominal 5 kW per cylinder Stirling converter assembly (SCA) which will serve as a prototype of one or more SCAs that will make up the final 30 kW Stirling Converter Power System. Assumed requirements for this new converter for lunar fission power systems will be presented. The primary objective of this development effort will be to demonstrate a 5 kW SCA that can be tested to validate the viability of Stirling technology for space fission surface power systems.


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    Title :

    New 5 Kilowatt Free‐Piston Stirling Space Converter Developments


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM-STAIF 2007: 11th Conf Thermophys.Applic.in Micrograv.; 24th Symp Space Nucl.Pwr.Propulsion; 5th Conf Hum/Robotic Techn & Vision Space Explor.; 5th Symp Space Coloniz.; 4th Symp New Frontrs & Future Con ; 2007 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 880 , 1 ; 466-471


    Publication date :

    2007-01-30


    Size :

    6 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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