Comparison of thermal insulation performance of fibrous materials for the advanced space suit.
The current multi-layer insulation used in the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) will not be effective in the atmosphere of Mars due to the presence of interstitial gases. Alternative thermal insulation means have been subjected to preliminary evaluation by NASA to attempt to identify a material that will meet the target conductivity of 0.005 W/m-K. This study analyzes numerically the thermal conductivity performance for three of these candidate insulating fiber materials in terms of various denier (size), interstitial void fractions, interstitial void media, and orientations to the applied temperature gradient to evaluate their applicability for the new Mars suit insulation. The results demonstrate that the best conductive insulation is achieved for a high-void-fraction configuration with a grooved fiber cross section, aerogel void medium, and the fibers oriented normal to the heat flux vector. However, this configuration still exceeds the target thermal conductivity by a factor of 1.5.
Advanced Space Suit Insulation Feasibility Study
For planetary applications, the space suit insulation has unique requirements because it must perform in a dynamic mode to protect humans in the harsh dust, pressure and temperature environments. Since the presence of a gaseous planetary atmosphere adds significant thermal conductance to the suit insulation, the current multi-layer flexible insulation designed for vacuum applications is not suitable in reduced pressure planetary environments such as that of Mars. Therefore a feasibility study has been conducted at NASA to identify the most promising insulation concepts that can be developed to provide an acceptable suit insulation. Insulation concepts surveyed include foams, microspheres, microfibers, and vacuum jackets. The feasibility study includes a literature survey of potential concepts, an evaluation of test results for initial insulation concepts, and a development philosophy to be pursued as a result of the initial testing and conceptual surveys. The recommended focus is on microfibers due to the versatility of fiber structure configurations, the wide choice of fiber materials available, the maturity of the fiber processing industry, and past experience with fibers in insulation applications
DESIGN CONSIDERATION TO PPM KLYSTRONS FOR INDUSTRIAL LINAC
Toshiba has been developing the C-band and X-band Periodic Permanent Magnet (PPM) focused klystron in collaboration with KEK and manufactured prototypes for the JLC project. [1] The PPM klystron has an advantage to enhance the total efficiency as a result of eliminating the electric power for the focusing magnet. From experience on the development the PPM focused klystrons for the JLC project, we plan to apply the PPM focused klystron to the medical and industrial linac. The periodic magnet focusing scheme has some technical difficulties such as stop band voltage. To design the PPM klystron for the medical and industrial linac, it is necessary to give heed to electron beam instability; so that the tube parameters of the PPM focused klystrons have some constraints. The size of the accelerator system is substantially reduced if a PPM focused klystron is used. The majority of medical and industrial linacs use frequencies of S-band range. We discuss the availability of the S-band PPM focused klystron in this paper.