Share

Development of porous plug phase separator and superfluid film flow suppression system for the Soft X-ray Spectrometer onboard ASTRO-H.

Author(s) : EZOE Y., ISHIKAWA K., OHASHI T., et al.

Type of article: Article

Summary

ASTRO-H is the sixth Japanese astronomy satellite scheduled for launch in 2014. The Soft X-ray Spectrometer instrument is onboard ASTRO-H. This is a 6 x 6 array of X-ray microcalorimeters with an energy resolution of <7 eV at 0.5–10 keV. Superfluid liquid helium is utilized as a part of the cooling system. To retain the liquid helium in the tank under zero-gravity, a porous plug phase separator made of sintered stainless is used. Since the vapor mass flow rate is only 29 µg/s, any additional superfluid film loss influences the lifetime of the liquid helium. Therefore, a film flow suppression system consisting of an orifice, a heat exchanger, and knife edge devices is adopted based on the design used for the X-ray Spectrometer onboard Suzaku. The film flow will be suppressed to <2 µg/s, sufficiently smaller than the vapor flow rate. In the present investigation, the design and ground experiments of a helium vent system composed of the porous plug and film flow suppression system are presented. The results show that the phase separation and the film flow suppression are satisfactorily achieved. [Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. Copyright, 2012].

Details

  • Original title: Development of porous plug phase separator and superfluid film flow suppression system for the Soft X-ray Spectrometer onboard ASTRO-H.
  • Record ID : 30003988
  • Languages: English
  • Source: Cryogenics - vol. 52 - n. 4-6
  • Publication date: 2012/04
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2012.01.024

Links


See other articles in this issue (13)
See the source

Indexing