TY - JOUR
T1 - An overview of advanced space/terrestrial power generation device
T2 - AMTEC
AU - Lodhi, M. A.K.
AU - Vijayaraghavan, P.
AU - Daloglu, A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are indebted to John Merrill for furnishing the data before publication. This work is supported in parts by the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research via Sub-contract no. F99-0832 CFDA no. 12800, Grant no. 98-0001 and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Grant no. ATP 003644-091.
PY - 2001/12/30
Y1 - 2001/12/30
N2 - Alkali metal thermal electric converter (AMTEC) technology offers several advantages over conventional forms of electric generation. Some of these advantages are high efficiency, high density, reliability, absence of moving parts, and competitive manufacturing costs. These and other advantages make AMTECs ideally suited for several space, aerospace, military and domestic applications. Current AMTEC designs suffer from some drawbacks that need to be rectified if the full potential of the technology is to be realized. These are current cell efficiencies that are still at values below the theoretically possible, and the adverse power-time characteristic of the cell. The PX-3A AMTEC cell, for instance, shows decreasing values of the maximum power output with time. Maximum power decreases from 2.54W at the end of 172h to 1.27W at 18,000h of cell operation. This latter problem, called power degradation, in particular, will preclude the use of the cell for applications that require operation of the cell for long periods of time. This paper discusses in detail the advantages of AMTEC technology and the problems with current designs. In particular, the problem of power degradation is dealt with in some detail and some measures are suggested that will help arrest this loss of power with time.
AB - Alkali metal thermal electric converter (AMTEC) technology offers several advantages over conventional forms of electric generation. Some of these advantages are high efficiency, high density, reliability, absence of moving parts, and competitive manufacturing costs. These and other advantages make AMTECs ideally suited for several space, aerospace, military and domestic applications. Current AMTEC designs suffer from some drawbacks that need to be rectified if the full potential of the technology is to be realized. These are current cell efficiencies that are still at values below the theoretically possible, and the adverse power-time characteristic of the cell. The PX-3A AMTEC cell, for instance, shows decreasing values of the maximum power output with time. Maximum power decreases from 2.54W at the end of 172h to 1.27W at 18,000h of cell operation. This latter problem, called power degradation, in particular, will preclude the use of the cell for applications that require operation of the cell for long periods of time. This paper discusses in detail the advantages of AMTEC technology and the problems with current designs. In particular, the problem of power degradation is dealt with in some detail and some measures are suggested that will help arrest this loss of power with time.
KW - AMTEC
KW - Efficiency
KW - Ionic resistance
KW - Power degradation
KW - Solid electrolytes
KW - Space power
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0035977362&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0378-7753(01)00813-8
DO - 10.1016/S0378-7753(01)00813-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0035977362
SN - 0378-7753
VL - 103
SP - 25
EP - 33
JO - Journal of Power Sources
JF - Journal of Power Sources
IS - 1
ER -