Miniature cryogenic valves for a Titan Lake sampling system

Stewart Sherrit; Wayne Zimmerman; Nobuyuki Takano; Louisa Avellar

doi:10.1117/12.2045185

10 April 2014 Miniature cryogenic valves for a Titan Lake sampling system

Stewart Sherrit, Wayne Zimmerman, Nobuyuki Takano, Louisa Avellar

Proceedings Volume 9061, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2014; 90613J (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2045185
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2014, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Cassini mission has revealed Titan to be one of the most Earthlike worlds in the Solar System complete with many of the same surface features including lakes, river channels, basins, and dunes. But unlike Earth, the materials and fluids on Titan are composed of cryogenic organic compounds with lakes of liquid methane and ethane. One of the potential mission concepts to explore Titan is to land a floating platform on one of the Titan Lakes and determine the local lake chemistry. In order to accomplish this within the expected mass volume and power budgets there is a need to pursue the development for a low power lightweight cryogenic valves which can be used along with vacuum lines to sample lake liquid and to distribute to various instruments aboard the Lander. To meet this need we have initiated the development of low power cryogenic valves and actuators based on a single crystal piezoelectric flextensional stacks produced by TRS ceramics Inc. Since the origin of such high electromechanical properties of Relaxor-PT single crystals is due to the polarization rotation effect, (i.e., intrinsic contributions), the strain per volt decrease at cryogenic temperatures is much lower than in standard Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) ceramics. This makes them promising candidates for cryogenic actuators with regards to the stroke for a given voltage. This paper will present our Titan Lake Sampling and Sample Handling system design and the development of small cryogenic piezoelectric valves developed to meet the system specifications.

Citation Download Citation

Stewart Sherrit, Wayne Zimmerman, Nobuyuki Takano, and Louisa Avellar "Miniature cryogenic valves for a Titan Lake sampling system", Proc. SPIE 9061, Sensors and Smart Structures Technologies for Civil, Mechanical, and Aerospace Systems 2014, 90613J (10 April 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2045185

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