Tasks:Power Generation Using Lunar Surface/Subsurface Temperature Differences
From TeamFrednetWiki
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2009 10 24 |
| Task title: | Tasks:Power Generation Using Lunar Surface/Subsurface Temperature Differences |
| Contact person: | Joe Kirk Thomas |
| Blueprint: | None |
| Persons working on this task: | None |
| Start: | ASAP |
| End: | ASAP |
| Group: | Category:Tasks_(Open)-lunar rover |
| Product: | Survey |
| Dependencies: | Concepts/Analysis |
| Impact: | No Dependencies |
| Percent complete: | 0% |
| Man-hours Remaining: | 15+ hours |
| Relate page: |
Category Page_of_Tasks:Power Generation Using Lunar Surface/Subsurface Temperature Differences not found
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Description:
The goal of this task is to examine concepts for deriving electrical energy from the temperature difference between the lunar surface and subsurface.
On the moon as well as the earth, when one digs beneath the surface, the temperature either declines (during the height of "day") or rises (in the depth of "night"). At some depth, one reaches an isothermal layer where the regolith temperature is essentially constant over the course of the diurnal cycle.
A heat engine operates by extracting heat from a higher temperature (T2) reservoir, extracting work, and rejecting waste heat to a reservoir at a lower temperature (T1). Its maximum theoretical efficiency (Carnot Efficiency) is 1-(T1/T2). Real efficiencies are less than this due to mechanical and other losses. Power can be extracted through both mechanical and thermoelectric means.
Real thermal reservoirs, however, have limited capacity to maintain their temperatures, due to finite heat capacity or low thermal conductivity of the reservoir materials.
The concepts to be generated and analyzed by this task principally envisage heat being drawn from the subsurface isothermal layers, energy extracted by an appropriate technique, and waste heat rejected into the vacuum of space. Such a technique may be used to allow the lunar lander/rover to survive the lunar night.
