Eric-- I think the test we are talking about is more likely to accept thermoelectric couples on the outside of the alumina vessel for direct electrical power generation than a steam generation system. Steam and water make the engineering of a heat to electricity conversion harder. That's why NASA uses Pu-238 with a thermoelectric couple for space probes IMHO.
Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Walker To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 10:32 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Engineering and materials issues with high temperature hot-cat Lugano demo On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 9:24 AM, Bob Higgins <[email protected]> wrote: I believe the large tubes on the end to be thermally insulating supports for the hot central 2 cm tube. A question that came to me was whether the alumina endcaps could be replaced with metal endcaps of a suitable alloy in the context of a larger array of devices, in order to provide a suitable path out for the heat to be used to generate steam. Another question I have is how much thermal load one of these devices can handle. Eric
