High-Temp Electronics For Venus Exploration, recent advances |
High-Temp Electronics For Venus Exploration, recent advances |
Mar 13 2013, 03:36 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 127 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 291 |
(MOD NOTE: Started a new topic for this discussion to continue. Please remember the 'no sci-fi engineering' provision of rule 1.9. Have fun!)
Also, since I'm thinking about surface operations on Venus, the state-of-the-art in high temperature electronics has advanced quite far in the past decade. Its now possible to buy off the shelf chips from vendors designed to operate at the 250-300 C range. Meanwhile basic functionality has been tested at and beyond the temperatures needed for long-term surface operations on Venus: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/SiC/ http://www.gizmag.com/extreme-silicon-carb...ctronics/16410/ http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/SiC/publicatio...Contact2010.pdf Another decade or so and a long-term Venus lander could be possible with (practically) off the shelf electronics! |
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Jun 25 2013, 08:48 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 279 Joined: 19-August 07 Member No.: 3299 |
If the chamber where it is stored electrical instruments has a static insulation and the air is emptied, the internal temperature would be lower than outside? I think the heat sink in Venus is not useful because the atmosphere is warmer outside than the inside of chamber.
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Jun 26 2013, 03:45 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 127 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 291 |
If you can get electronics running at ambient, just leave them exposed* and cool them off with a fan. After all - thats what we do with PCs here when they run hotter than the atmospheric temp
On a more realistic note, if memory serves, the latest surface proposals were nuclear powered and cooled with a Stirling Cycle heat engine. Of course those missions anticipated a 200 C interior and 500 C exterior - a 300 C differential. I imagine the power requirements for running the heat engines would be lower if you can get the electronics closer to 400 C and a 100 C - or smaller - differential, and more than make up for the hotter electronics. *Now we just need high temperature, acid rain resistant electronics |
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Jun 26 2013, 09:09 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 20 Joined: 19-March 13 Member No.: 6897 |
If you can get electronics running at ambient, just leave them exposed* and cool them off with a fan. After all - thats what we do with PCs here when they run hotter than the atmospheric temp On a more realistic note, if memory serves, the latest surface proposals were nuclear powered and cooled with a Stirling Cycle heat engine. Of course those missions anticipated a 200 C interior and 500 C exterior - a 300 C differential. I imagine the power requirements for running the heat engines would be lower if you can get the electronics closer to 400 C and a 100 C - or smaller - differential, and more than make up for the hotter electronics. *Now we just need high temperature, acid rain resistant electronics Indeed, those actively cooled mission proposals are what my mentor has been working on. But the power requirements are pretty big for active cooling, since your heat dump is so hot. That means completely custom high-power radioisotope... Flagship class funding requirement, but at best a Discovery-class risk level, so unlikely to fly before I retire. But one good thing about Venus's atmosphere is that because it's so dense, it should carry /extra/ heat away rather well, better than on Earth. Of course, the problem is that you have to start out at ~450C or so.... Also, although there is no acid rain droplets on the surface, you do have the products of dissociated sulfuric acid, so corrosion is still a problem. But a better problem to have than the incredibly high temperatures. |
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