Rocket's exhaust heat turned to electric power

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1960
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 145 KB
• Volume: 269
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-0032(60)90074-0

✦ Synopsis

Rocket's Exhaust Heat Turned to

Electric Power.--A radically new electronic generator with no moving parts, designed to convert the heat of a rocket exhaust directly to electric power to run steering controls of a rocket or guided missile, has been announced by the Radio Corporation of America and the Hunter-Bristol Division of Thiokol Chemical Corporation.

The new device, a developmental RCA tube of the type known as a thermionic generator, has already produced up to 270 watts of power directly from a high-temperature heat source--an output of nearly 80 watts per pound of its 3½-lb. total weight. Coupled to a Thiokol solid-fuel rocket motor in a special test mount, the tube has generated useful levels of power directly from the rocket exhaust heat during preliminary evaluation tests.

According to RCA and Thiokol engineers, the results of the tests with both simulated and actual rocket heat sources have shown the feasibility of using thermionic tubes as efficient and light-weight generators to produce the electric power required in large missiles and satellite launching vehicles during the critical launching and upward flight stages. They pointed out that such devices could power the steering mechanism of the rocket as well as the guidance, telemetering, and related electronic equipment of a missile throughout the operating life of the rocket motor.

Commenting on the advantages of the thermionic generator tube in the rocket application, Dr. Karl G. Hernqvist who headed the group which developed the tube, said: