Quench Module Insert (QMI) Microgravity Materials Processing What is microgravity materials processing ? - Creating desired thermal gradient and solid/liquid interface front movement for a given processing temperature in a microgravity environment •The science requirements for materials processing is to provide the desired PI requirements of thermal gradient, solid/liquid interface front velocity for a given processing temperature desired by the PI. •Processing is performed by translating the furnace with the sample in a stationary position to minimize any disturbances to the solid/liquid interface front during steady state processing. •Typical sample materials for this metals and alloys furnace are: lead-tin alloys, lead-antimony alloys, and aluminum alloys •Samples must be safe to process and therefore typically are contained with hermetically sealed cartridge tubes (gas tight) with inner ceramic liners (liquid tight) to prevent contamination and/or reaction of the sample material with the cartridge tube. Thermal Design, Analysis, and Testing of the Quench Module Insert Bread Board July 31, 2001 Shawn Breeding and Julia Khodabandeh ED25/ NA SA/MSFC •Shawn Breeding/ED25/NASA/MSFC •Phone: (256) 544-5473 •Email: shawn.breeding @msfc.nasa.gov •Julia Khodabandeh/ED25/NASAfMSFC •Phone: (256) 544-4396 oEmail: Julia.W.Khodabandeh @msfc.nasa.gov Quench Module Insert (QMI) Science Requirements Metals and Alloys Processing - Currently Supporting Two Investigators - Sample Processing from 600°C to 1400°C - Various Sample Materials up to lcm diameter - Sample Gradients up to 150°C/cmfor a lcm aluminum sample at 1IO0°C processing - Sample lsothermali_ of+-lO°C over a lOcm length ofa lcm dia. aluminum sample - 20cm hot zone; four independently controlled zones; 20cm of translation; approximately 18cm of sample processing - Sample Quench rates providing solidification ofa 2cm length ofa lcm diameter aluminum sample in 2seconds oQMI currently supports: •Dr. Doru Stefanescu/University of Alabama; "Particles Engulfment and Pushing by Solidifying Interfaces (PEP)"; Aluminum-based alloys which are cast with Zirconia particles to study the effects of temperature gradient, sample characteristics, particle size, and interface front velocity on the process of engulfing or pushing these particles at the solid/liquid interface location. Typical requirements denoted are: 900°C processing, 100°C/cm sample gradient, ? processing velocities, and a rapid quench rate of 100°C/sec at the end of processing. °Dr. Barry Andrews/University of Alabama at Birmingham; "Coupled Growth in Hypermonotectics (CGH)"; Aluminum-Indium alloys (immiscible) processed in a microgravity environment to investigate the effects of alloying percentages, thermal gradient, and interface front velocity on the process of forming indium fibers within an aluminum matrix. Typical requirements denoted are: 1100°C processing, 150°C/cm sample gradient, and ? processing velocities. oQMI has been and is currently being studied to support other investigations in the areas of metals/alloys processing and semi-conductor crystal growth. The flexibility of the cold zone design and the independent control of the four heated zones provides QMI with a flexible desig-n that can be used by many investigations. Quench Module Insert (QMI) Interfaces MSRR-! (MSFC) QMI S_e (Pt) •The MSRR-1 rack is a full rack system supported by MSFC. The MSRR-1 rack provides station resources (power, cooling, command and control) to payloads. •The right portion of the MSRR-1 rack is used by the MSL (ESA) system. •The MSL system provides all of the interfacing hardware to the various inserts (power, cooling, data acquisition, control, house keeping, temperature monitoring/control, etc.) •The QMI uses the resources provided by the MSL system to attain the science requirements denoted by the Principle Investigators and their investigations. •The Sample Container (SACA) uses the environments generated by the QMI to attain science requirements and processing conditions denoted by the PIs. •The samples are fabricated by the PIs to focus on the science aspects of their investigations. •The systems must work in harmony and interface with each other properly. This results in a lot of interface documentation, specifications, and design impacts which are flowed down from the Station level to the PI level of this intricate system. Safety of the entire system must be coordinated at all levels. 4 Quench Module Insert (QMI) Interface Requirements Integration in the ESA's Materials Science Laboratory - 3kW Mar. Power/Cooling Allocation (currently showing a max. power requirement of less than 450W at 1400°C) - Fail Safe Loss of Cooling (max. 60Oral of expelled volume) - Touch Temperature (>49°C) during all phases of processing - Limits on waste heat losses to the ESA thermal chamber (IOOW) - Max. Shell temperatures - Max. Coolant return temperatures - 190mbarpressure drop at max. coolantflow conditions •Various interface agreements and specifications are used to denote requirements and allocations at all levels of the system. oQMI's major requirements to the ESA (MSL) system are in the areas of resource allocation (power, cooling), command/control, and safety. 5 Quench Module Insert (QMI) Design Layout • Bridgman-type, Vacuum Furnace • Four heatedzones • One interchangeable cold zone • Phase Change Quench System • Highly Efficient Insulation Design oQMI is a Bridgman-style furnace capable of providing up to a 1400°C processing environment. •There are four heated zones (two booster heaters, one main heater, and one guard) °The dual boosters were required by Dr. Stefanescu's investigation to maximize the capability of producing a high thermal gradient without exceeding a maximum processing temperature of 900°C. These zones typically use set points 50-150°C higher in temperature than the sample processing temperature to induce large thermal gradients in the sample. •The main heater is used to stabilize and/or set the processing temperature of the sample. •The guard heater provides a measure of preventing hot zone temperature roll off at the end of the sample cartridge. °The cold zone is interchangeable which allows cartridge sizes to be varied as per PI science requirements. This enables the QMI design the flexibility to tailor the needs of the investigator to extract heat at a desired rate thereby allowing better control of the interface front position. °The phase change quench system provides extremely fast sample cooling. Current benchtop testing has shown that the PCD (Phase Change Device) provides quench rates that have been unattainable by water-based or gas-based systems previously used. The design also has very little interface or resource requirements from the MSL system. °The QMI insulation system has been shown by testing to be highly efficient. The design minimizes contaminant materials (outgassing sources) and is very 6 • . Quench Module Insert (QMI) Design Layout •The layout of the QMI is shown in this figure. •The four heated zones are shown along with their control black bodies which are used to monitor zone temperatures and provide excellent temperature control of the system. The responsiveness of these black bodies will assure that there are no interface front disturbances caused by erratic hot zone control during steady state processing. These control black bodies also provide a redundant measurement of the zone temperatures to assure adequate life and repeatability of the system. The zones are insulated from one another by foil insulation to allow for better control temperature setpoint offsets between the boosters and the main heater thereby increasing the thermal gradient generation capability of the QMI. •The gradient zone is comprised of many layers of axial insulation to prevent axial heat loss from the booster #1 heater and to minimize heat transfer/loss from the sample cartridge in the _adient zone. The core closeout spacers and the lower/mid spacers provide conductive breaks in the heat flow path on the guard end of the core to minimize heat loss to the adjustment plate portion of the insert. •The cone-shaped chill block is comprised of an outer chill block cooling sleeve instrumented for control of the cold zone via flow rate variation. The inner chill block sleeve (thermal interface collar) interfaces with the outer sleeve via a interface filler material to assure proper conductive coupling of the inner sleeve with the outer sleeve with a minimal contact force (101b). The inner sleeve is lined with a graphite fiber interface material called Veltherm at the cold zone- to-chill block interface to conductively extract heat from the cartridge while maintaining a con formal interface. Quench Module Insert (QMI) Design Layout •The far left figure shows the current QMI bread board. The extemal water jacket along with its cooling coils are shown. The chill block is somewhat visible on the top of the unit. Various control and health/status instrumentation along with the water loop routing are shown. •The middle figure shows the QMI bread board mounted within it's processing canister. This bread board system contains all of the equipment required to mimic the ESA MSL system (cooling cart, translation, temperature control, power supplies, etc.). The unit is housed in the Microgravity Design Laboratory at MSFC. •The far right figure is a small scale mock up of the integrated MSRR-1 rack system. The left portion of the rack shows the integration of ESA's MSL system with a typical insert and cartridge. The thermal chamber of the MSL system is not shown to provide insight into the integration of the cartridge, insert, and facility. 8 QMI Thermal Analysis and Design Methodology • Modeling via TRASYS II, SINDA/G, and SINDA85 - One overall a__i-symmetric SINDA/G model (>5000 nodes) per Unit • Easily reconfiguredfor any translation position via user constants • Detailedcomponentleveltemperaturesummarytablesandplotsgenerated for each case • User defined sinroutinesfor helical heat transfer coefficient, uniform power distribution, sumnmry tables, plot files - Three TRASYS Hmodels (translatable bore, jacket, and PCD) • EasilyreconfiguredforanytranslationpositionorSACAgeometry/surface properties via users constants • Preliminary Hot Zone Test Article to verify insulation and thermal performance in a static test condition (heavily instrumented) • Hot Zone Test Article model correlation results and lessons learned are applied to Bread Board and Flight models • Bread Board model correlation results and lessons learned are applied to both the Bread Board and Flight models •The tools used for the QMI design consisted of standard thermal modeling methods using SINDAG and SINDA85, with various TRASYS models to obtain the radiation environments (radiation conductors). •An axi-symmetric model was used to simplify the model and allow modeling details required by the component-level assessments needed by the design team. •The models were laid out to be easily reconfigurable via users constants (xk constants). The intent was to provide one model which could easily modified to assess many processing configurations and conditions. •A detailed summary table was written to allow quick troubleshooting of the results and permit a quick generation and evaluation of results obtained at various set points. °The radiation heat transfer was modeled using TRASYS with the system separated into three calculation domains to allow for greater model detail and fidelity and faster model turnaround. °A hot zone test article was used to evaluate the modeling methodology and to verify thermal performance in a static test unit (non-translatable). •The results obtained in the hot zone test article are applied to the design and analysis of the bread board unit and flight unit. •The bread board model and correlated test data is used to provide inputs and correlated results to the flight unit. 9 QMI Thermal Analysis and Design Methodology •The far left figure shows one of the three TRASYS models used to calculate the radiative heat transfer environment for QMI. This model is used to calculate internal bore-to-cartridge environments and external water jacket-to-ESA thermal chamber environments. The model is fully translatable to any 2mm location throughout the 20cm translation capability of the insert. The detailed modeling of the gradient zone is also shown in this figure. •The middle figure shows the stationary portion of the three TRASYS models used for QMI. This model is used to obtain the heat transfer environment between the outer surface of the insulation jacket and the inner surface of the water jacket. This model also provides heat transfer environments on the guard end of the insert. The overimposed figure (as shown via animation during the presentation) shows how the two models work in conjunction with each other. •The final figure is an animation denoting the ability of this approach to analyze any position within the 20cm translation capability of the insert by changing one of the many user defined variables in the translatable bore model. All of the TRASYS models were generated via user constants to enable the analysts to assess various cartridge configurations easily and quickly at any processing stage of the PIs processing profile. 10