Low temperature thermal conductivity of aluminum alloy 1200

The thermal conductivity of aluminum alloy 1200 was determined from 4.2 K to 160 K using a thermal conductivity integral method. This steady state method has been implemented in a cryostat having a cold finger cooled with liquid helium and nitrogen. These materials were considered to create thermal link for the Planck research satellite. Two samples are studied; the “as fabricated” 1200 alloy and the 1200 H19 (cold-drawn). As expected, the evolution of the thermal conductivity with temperature of both alloys follows the electronic thermal conductivity theory with a good accuracy below 60 K. At higher temperature, the thermal conductivity reaches a maximum then decreases as T^?n and finally remains constant due to the electron–phonon scattering. As expected, the thermal conductivity of the cold-drawn alloy, 1200 H19, is reduced compared to that of the 1200 alloy due to a higher concentration of defects in the metal.     

Low temperature physical properties of a high Mn austenitic steel JK2LB

High manganese austenitic stainless steel JK2LB is developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency for applications as a conduit material for superconducting cable-in-conduit conductors for the magnets of international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER). The low temperature physical property data of this material are very important to ITER magnet design. Therefore in this paper, our measurements of the physical properties including room temperature Young’s modulus and thermal expansion, magnetization, thermal conductivity, specific heat and resistivity at temperatures from room temperature down to 2 K are reported. We found that JK2LB is antiferromagnetic at low temperatures with a Néel temperature of 240 K. This is consistent with a prediction based on the chemical composition of the austenite stainless steel. The antiferromagnetic phase transition is also evident in the resistivity vs. T curve. Nevertheless, no anomalies are observable in its specific heat and thermal conductivity from 2 K to 300 K. The thermal expansion of this steel between 10 K and 300 K is about 0.22%. Its Young’s modulus, specific heat and thermal conductivity are comparable to that of 316LN stainless steel.     

Niobium flex cable for low temperature high density interconnects

This work describes the fabrication and characterization of a Niobium on polyimide flex cable suitable for sub-Kelvin temperatures. The processing used can be extended to high density interconnects and allows for direct integration with printed circuit boards. Several key parameters such as RRR, T_c, current carrying capability at 4 K and thermal conductivity in the range from 0.15 to 10 K have been measured. The average T_c was found to be 8.9 K, with a minimum of 8.3 K. Several samples allowed for more than 50 mA current at 4 K while remaining in the superconducting state. The thermal conductivity for this flex design is dominated by the polyimide, in our case Pyralin PI-2611,² and is in good agreement with published thermal conductivity data for a polyimide called Upilex R.³     

A capric–palmitic–stearic acid ternary eutectic mixture/expanded graphite composite phase change material for thermal energy storage

This paper demonstrated a capric acid–palmitic acid–stearic acid ternary eutectic mixture/expanded graphite (CA–PA–SA/EG) composite phase change material (PCM) for low-temperature heat storage. The CA–PA–SA ternary eutectic mixture with a mass ratio of CA:PA:SA = 79.3:14.7:6.0 was prepared firstly, and its mass ratio in the CA–PA–SA/EG composite can reach as high as 90%. The melting and freezing temperatures of CA–PA–SA/EG composite were 21.33 °C and 19.01 °C, and the corresponding latent heat were 131.7 kJ kg⁻¹ and 127.2 kJ kg⁻¹. The CA–PA–SA/EG composite powders can be formed into round blocks by dry pressing easily, with much higher thermal conductivity than CA–PA–SA. Thermal performance test showed that the increasing thermal conductivity of CA–PA–SA could obviously decrease the melting/cooling time. Thermal property characterizations after 500 heating/cooling cycles test indicated that CA–PA–SA/EG composite PCM had excellent thermal reliability. Based on all these results, CA–PA–SA/EG composite PCM is a promising material for low-temperature thermal energy storage applications.     

3He/4He dilution refrigerator with high cooling capacity and direct pulse tube pre-cooling

In the article, a ³He/⁴He dilution refrigerator (DR) is described which is pre-cooled by a commercial two-stage pulse tube refrigerator (PTR); cryo-liquids are not necessary with this type of milli-kelvin refrigerator. The simple design of the condensation stage of this so-called dry DR is novel and explained in detail. In most dry DRs the circulating ³He gas is cooled by a two-stage PTR to a temperature of about 4 K. In the next cooling step, the ³He flow is cooled and partially liquefied in a Joule–Thomson circuit, before it is run to the dilution refrigeration unit. The counterflow heat exchanger of the Joule–Thomson circuit is cooled by the cold ³He gas pumped from the still of the DR. In the DR described here, the heat exchanger of the Joule–Thomson stage was omitted entirely; in the present design, the ³He gas is cooled by the PTR in three different heat exchangers, with the first one mounted on the first stage of the PTR, the second one on the regenerator of the second stage, and the third one on the cold end of the second stage. The heat load caused by the ³He flow is mostly absorbed by the first two heat exchangers. Thus the ³He flow presents only a small heat load to the second stage of the PTR, which therefore operates close to its base temperature of 2.5 K at all times. A pre-cooling temperature of 2.5 K of the ³He flow is sufficiently low to run a DR without further pre-cooling. The simplified condensation system allows for a shorter, compacter and more economical design of the DR. Additionally, the pumping speed of the turbo pump is no longer obstructed by the counterflow heat exchanger of the Joule Thomson stage as in our earlier DR design.     

High-temperature electrical resistivity and heat capacity studies on nano-crystalline geikielite

We report here for the first time the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity and heat capacity of nano-crystalline MgTiO₃ geikielite of up to 1000 K. The temperature dependence of heat capacity of nano-crystalline geikielite expressed as C_p = 46.44(5) + 0.0502(2)T − 4.56 × 10⁶T² + 1.423 × 10³T^− 0.5 − 8.672 × 10^− 6T^− 2, where C_p = is specific heat expressed in J/mol. K and T is the temperature in K. Both the electrical resistivity and heat capacity behaviour show that the geikielite (both the natural and synthetic nano-crystalline samples) are stable and remains electrically insulating up to 1000 K.     

Experimental investigation on the performance of a neon cryogenic oscillating heat pipe

An experimental investigation is conducted to study the performance of a cryogenic oscillating heat pipe (OHP) using neon as the working fluid. The stainless steel OHP with an inner diameter of 0.9 mm has 4 turns, and the lengths of the evaporator, condenser section and adiabatic section are 35 mm, 35 mm and 95 mm, respectively. The temperature of the evaporator and condenser and the pressure of the OHP are measured. The results show that the cooling down process of the OHP from room temperature to the working temperature can be significantly accelerated by charging with neon. During the pseudo steady-state operation process, the temperature of evaporator and the pressure of the OHP increase with increasing heat input. When the dry out appears, the temperature of evaporator rises quickly, and the pressure of the OHP drops sharply. In addition, the effective thermal conductivity of the OHP at the different heat inputs and the different filling ratios is calculated. It increases with increasing heat input, and there exists an optimum filling ratio which makes the maximum effective thermal conductivity. For this OHP, the optimum filling ratio is 24.5%, at which the effective thermal conductivity is 6100–22,180 W/m K.     

Development and parametric study of the convection-type stationary adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR) for hydrogen re-condensation

The adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR) system in this paper is composed of a conduction-cooled current cycling high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet system, a magnetic bed assembly, its heat exchange parts and an auxiliary precooling stage (a commercial GM cryocooler and a liquid nitrogen vessel). The whole magnetic refrigeration system including the conduction-cooled HTS magnet is cooled by the precooling stage to absorb the rejection heat of the ADR cycle. The packed bed type magnetic bed consists of tiny irregular powders of Dy_0.9Gd_0.1Ni₂ enclosed in a thin walled stainless steel container (22.2 mm in O.D., 0.3 mm in thickness and 40.0 mm in height). The precooled heat transfer fluid (helium) travels through the magnetic material when heat rejection is required; otherwise the helium stagnates within its pores (pseudo-adiabatic process). Flow of the heat transfer fluid substitutes for the function of a traditional heat switch, creating, essentially, a forced-convection type heat switch. The magnetic bed assembly is periodically magnetized and demagnetized at the center of the conduction-cooled HTS magnet which can stably generate both strong and alternating magnetic field from 0 T to 3.0 T (0–130 A) with an average ramp rate of 0.24 T s⁻¹. The cooling capacities of the ADR system at 20 K which is the normal boiling point (NBP) of hydrogen, are 11.1 J cycle⁻¹, 6.3 J cycle⁻¹ and 1.9 J cycle⁻¹ when the temperature spans are 1 K, 2 K and 3 K, respectively. We describe the detailed construction of the ADR system and discuss the test results with the operational parameters (the entrained helium pressure, the mass flow rate of helium and the operating temperature span) in the 20 K region.     

A facile assembly of polyimide/graphene core–shell structured nanocomposites with both high electrical and thermal conductivities

Polyimide/reduced graphene oxide (PI/r-GO) core–shell structured microspheres were fabricated by in-situ reduction of graphene oxide (GO), which was coated on the surface of PI microspheres via hydrogen bonding and π–π stacking interaction. The highly ordered 3D core–shell structure of PI/r-GO microspheres with graphene shell thickness of 3 nm was well characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman spectra. The glass transition temperature (T_g) of PI/r-GO microspheres was slightly increased because of the interaction of r-GO and PI matrix while the temperature at 5% weight loss (T_5%) of PI/r-GO microspheres was decreased due to the side effect of reductant hydrazine hydrate. The PI/r-GO nanocomposites exhibited highly electrical conductivity with percolation threshold of 0.15 vol% and ultimate conductivity of 1.4 × 10⁻² S/m. Besides, the thermal conductivity of PI/r-GO nanocomposites with 2% weight content of r-GO could reach up to 0.26 W/m K.     

Low temperature thermal conductivity of aluminum alloy 5056

The thermal conductivity of 5056 aluminum alloy was determined from 4.2 K to 120 K using a differential steady-state method. This method has been implemented in a low temperature cryostat using a Gifford–McMahon cryocooler as heat sink. The thermal conductivity of the 5056 H39 aluminum alloy was determined since it was under consideration as a part of a thermal link for the Planck research satellite. As expected, below 10 K the thermal conductivity is exclusively given by the electron-defect scattering term. At higher temperature, the other terms from the electronic and the lattice contributions come into play but the electronic thermal conductivity term is still dominant. A workable fit, based on theory, is presented and can be used up to 300 K. Our measurements are compared with data at lower temperature and available fits from the literature.     

Thermal and mechanical properties of waste grass broom fiber-reinforced polyester composites

The main focus of this study is to utilize waste grass broom natural fibers as reinforcement and polyester resin as matrix for making partially biodegradable green composites. Thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity and thermal diffusivity of composites were investigated as a function of fiber content and temperature. The waste grass broom fiber has a tensile strength of 297.58 MPa, modulus of 18.28 GPa, and an effective density of 864 kg/m³. The volume fraction of fibers in the composites was varied from 0.163 to 0.358. Thermal conductivity of unidirectional composites was investigated experimentally by a guarded heat flow meter method. The results show that the thermal conductivity of composite decreased with increase in fiber content and the quite opposite trend was observed with respect to temperature. Moreover, the experimental results of thermal conductivity at different volume fractions were compared with two theoretical models. The specific heat capacity of the composite as measured by differential scanning calorimeter showed similar trend as that of the thermal conductivity. The variation in thermal diffusivity with respect to volume fraction of fiber and temperature was not so significant.The tensile strength and tensile modulus of the composites showed a maximum improvement of 222% and 173%, respectively over pure matrix. The work of fracture of the composites with maximum volume fraction of fibers was found to be 296 Jm⁻¹.     

Structure and thermal conductivity of powder injection molded AlN ceramic

AlN powders doped with Y₂O₃ (5 wt.%) were compacted by employing powder injection molding (PIM) technique. The binder consisted of paraffin wax (PW, 60 wt.%), polypropylene (PP, 35 wt.%) and stearic acid (SA, 5 wt.%). The feedstock was prepared with a solid loading of 62 vol.%. The binder was removed through debinding process in two steps, solvent debinding followed by thermal debinding. At last, the debound samples were sintered in flowing nitrogen gas at atmospheric pressure. The result reveals that thermal debinding atmosphere has significant effect on the thermal conductivity and structure of AlN ceramics. The thermal conductivity of injection molded AlN ceramics thermal debound in flowing nitrogen gas is 231 W m^?1 K^?1.     

Thermal conductivity and Kapitza resistance of cyanate ester epoxy mix and tri-functional epoxy electrical insulations at superfluid helium temperature

In the framework of the European Union FP7 project EuCARD, two composite insulation systems made of cyanate ester epoxy mix and tri-functional epoxy (TGPAP-DETDA) with S-glass fiber have been thermally tested as possible candidates to be the electrical insulation of 13 T Nb₃Sn high field magnets under development for this program. Since it is expected to be operated in pressurized superfluid helium at 1.9 K and 1 atm, the thermal conductivity and the Kapitza resistance are the most important input parameters for the thermal design of this type of magnet and have been determined in this study. For determining these thermal properties, three sheets of each material with different thicknesses varying from 245 to 598 μm have been tested in steady-state condition in the temperature range of 1.6–2.0 K. The thermal conductivity for the tri-functional epoxy (TGPAP-DETDA) epoxy resin insulation is found to be k = [(34.2 ± 5.5)?T ? (16.4 ± 8.2)] × 10^?3 Wm^?1 K^?1 and for the cyanate ester epoxy k = [(26.8 ± 4.8)?T ? (9.6 ± 5.2)] × 10^?3 Wm^?1 K^?1. For the Kapitza resistance, R_k, the best curve fitting the experimental data is described by R_k = (3057 ± 593) × 10^?6?T (?1.79 ± 0.34) m² KW^?1 for the TGPAP-DETDA insulation and R_k = (4114 ± 971) × 10^?6?T (?1.73 ± 0.41) m² KW^?1 for the cyanate ester epoxy insulation. Our results are compared with other epoxy based composite electrical insulation found in the literature.     

Synthesis of Dy doped Yb0.1Ca0.9MnO3 ceramics with a high relative density and their thermoelectric properties

Perovskite-type Yb_0.1Ca_0.9?xDy_xMnO₃ ceramics were synthesized by solid state reaction. Their microstructures were characterized and the thermoelectric properties were evaluated between 300 K and 1100 K. Each of sample exhibits single phase with orthorhombic structure. All samples have high relative densities, and their values are between 95% and 97%, which is consistent with the SEM image. The electrical resistivity shows a typical metallic conductivity behavior. Lowest electrical resistivity 2.36 mΩ cm is achieved at room temperature, and the variation of electrical resistivity is not evident in whole measured temperature range. The Seebeck coefficients are negative, indicating an n-type conduction. The highest power factor 310 μW/(K² m) is obtained for the sample with x = 0.02. The thermal conductivity is decreased by the difference in the mass between the Ca²⁺ and Dy³⁺ ions, especially in the heavy doped samples. The highest figure of merit is 0.11 at 1069 K for the sample with x = 0.02.     

The thermal behaviour of the tritium source in KATRIN

The tritium source in the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN) will deliver 10¹¹ β decay electrons per second, in order to determine the mass of the electron antineutrino through analysing the tritium β spectrum. The source is built of a 10 m long beam tube of 90 mm inner diameter, which is operated at 30 K. Gaseous tritium is injected through a central injection chamber and diffuses towards the tube ends, where it is pumped by large turbomolecular pumps and further processed in a closed tritium loop. In order to achieve the KATRIN sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c², the decay rate in the source (and hence the tritium density profile) must be stable to a level of ±0.1%. As the density profile is influenced by the beam tube conductance, both the temperature stability and the temperature homogeneity must be within a range of ±0.03 K at 30 K. A thermosiphon with saturated neon was developed for this purpose, with horizontal evaporator tubes connected all along the 10 m beam tube. The system behaviour was tested in a 12 m long test cryostat, containing the original beam tube with the adjacent pumping chambers, as well as the cooling circuits and the thermal shields. The so-called “Demonstrator” was operated in the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) being connected to the cryogenic infrastructure of KATRIN. The temperature stability was found a factor 20 better than specified, achieving a standard deviation of only 1.5 mK/h, which corresponds to ΔT/T = 5 × 10⁻⁵ h⁻¹ relative stability at 30 K. The ±0.03 K temperature homogeneity along the 10 m beam tube was not yet reached, because of an increased heat load through the pump ports. The repeatability of the temperature measurement with vapour pressure sensors was within ± 0.004 K.     

Thermal conductivity of Cu/diamond composites prepared by a new pretreatment of diamond powder

Cu/diamond composites were fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) after the surface pretreatment of the diamond powders, in which the diamond particles were mixed with copper powder and tungsten powder (carbide forming element W). The effects of the pretreatment temperature and the diamond particle size on the thermal conductivity of diamond/copper composites were investigated. It was found that when 300 μm diamond particles and Cu–5 wt.% W were mixed and preheated at 1313 K, the composites has a relatively higher density and its thermal conductivity approaches 672 W (m K)⁻¹.     

The thermoelectric properties of InxCo4Sb12 alloys prepared by HPHT

In_xCo₄Sb₁₂ (0.1 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) skutterudite compounds with bcc crystal structure have been prepared by high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) method. Through this method, the processing time can be reduced from a few days to half an hour. The constituent phases of all resultant samples were determined by X-ray diffraction. The Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, power factor and thermal conductivity of In_xCo₄Sb₁₂ (0.1 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) were all measured in the temperature range of 302–665 K. Among all the samples, In_0.5Co₄Sb₁₂ showed the highest power factor of 31.3 μWcm^? 1 K^? 2 at 616 K and the lowest thermal conductivity of 2.193 Wm^? 1 K^? 1 at 568 K. As a result, the maximum dimensionless figure of merit (ZT) value of In_0.5Co₄Sb₁₂ reached 0.88 at 665 K, which can be attributed to its low thermal conductivity and high power factor.     

Effect of Fe and Co doping on electrical and thermal properties of La0.5Ce0.5Mn1−x(Fe,Co)xO3 manganites

The effect of Fe and Co doping on structural, electrical and thermal properties of half doped La_0.5Ce_0.5Mn_1−x(Fe, Co)_xO₃ is investigated. The structure of these crystallizes in to orthorhombically distorted perovskite structure. The electrical resistivity of La_0.5Ce_0.5MnO₃ exhibits metal-semiconductor transition (T_MS at ∼225 K). However, La_0.5Ce_0.5Mn_1−xTM_xO₃ (TM = Fe, Co; 0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) manganites show semiconducting behavior. The thermopower measurements infer hole as charge carriers and electron–magnon as well spin wave fluctuation mechanism are effective at low temperature domain and SPC model fits the observed data at high temperature. The magnetic susceptibility measurement confirms a transition from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic phase. The observed peaks in the specific heat measurements, shifts to lower temperatures and becomes progressively broader with doping of transition metals on Mn-site. The thermal conductivity is measured in the temperature range of 10–350 K with a magnitude in between 10 and 80 mW/cm K.     

Electrical and thermal conductivity in Mg–5Sn Alloy at different aging status

The electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and its relationship with the microstructure in Mg–5Sn alloy aged at 513 K for different aging times were investigated systematically in this paper. The results show that the electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity obviously increase with the increasing aging time, and its values increase from 10.25 × 10⁶ S·m^− 1 to 13.7 × 10⁶ S·m^− 1, 87.5 W·m^− 1·K^− 1 to 122 W·m^− 1·K^− 1 after aging treatment for 120 h, respectively. Meanwhile, it is found that there exist quite different relationships between unit cell volume and thermal conductivity in early and later aging stages.     

18.6 K single-stage high frequency multi-bypass coaxial pulse tube cryocooler

A single-stage high frequency multi-bypass coaxial pulse tube cryocooler (PTC) has been developed for physical experiments. The performance characteristics are presented. At present, the cooler has reached the lowest temperature of 18.6 K with an electric input power of 268 W, which is the reported lowest temperature for single-stage high frequency PTC. The cooler typically provides 0.2 W at 20.6 K and 0.5 W at 24.1 K with the input power of 260 W at 300 K ambient temperature. The cooperation phase adjustment method of multi-bypass and double-inlet shows its advantages in experiments, they might be the best way to get temperature below 20 K for single-stage high frequency PTC. The temperature stability of the developed PTC is also observed.