In this design challenge by the Texas Space Grant Consortium, the researchers design a cooling system for a lithium-ion battery. Lithium-ion batteries are an effective and reliable source of energy for small, portable devices. However, similar to other existing sources of energy, there is always a problem with overheating. The objective is to design a cooling system for lithium-ion batteries that will work in a zero gravity environment for orbital and interplanetary space systems. The system is to serve as a backup battery and a signal booster that can be incorporated into a spacesuit. The design must be able to effectively cool the batteries without the use of an atmosphere to carry away heat but also be a lightweight and reliable design. The design incorporates carbon nanotubes suspended in distilled water creating a nano-fluid environment. This design must include a failsafe in the event of thermal runaway, a problem common to lithium-ion batteries. This failsafe will completely shut off the system if the batteries reach a certain temperature. A cooling system that incorporates nano-fluids will achieve a lightweight and efficient way of cooling batteries.
The following paper deals with acoustic flame suppression mechanics in a microgravity environment with measurements taken from an Arduino-based sensor system and validation of the technique. A Zippo lighter is ignited in microgravity and then displaced from the base of the flame and suppressed using surface interactions with single tone acoustic waves to extinguished the flame. The analysis of data collected shows that the acoustic flame suppression measurementtechniques are effective to finding qualitative differences in extinguishing in microgravity and normal gravity. Further, the results suggest that the suppression may be more effective in a microgravity environment than in a normal (1g) environment and may be a viable method of extinguishing fires during space flight.
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