HEAT TRANSFER APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR TUBES INCORPORATED IN GRAPHITE OR CARBON/CARBON COMPOSITES

Abstract

A novel heat transfer apparatus and method including a body of carbon/carbon material with cooling tubes brazed therein. The carbon/carbon material includes carbon, graphite, carbon fibers, graphite fibers and combinations of the same and silicon carbide and boron carbide. The cooling tubes are prepared from stainless steel, nickel and its alloys, cobalt and its alloys, copper, molybdenum, molybdenum rhenium alloy, and carbon. A wetting agent is applied to the carbon surfaces to protect the carbon surfaces from attack by the molten brazing material and is selected from molybdenum niobium, tantalum, tungsten, and carbides of these refractory metals. The brazing material is selected from copper, copper alloys, silver, and gold. Advantageously, the wetting agent not only protects the carbon surfaces from attack by the brazing metals but its surface tension therewith holds the brazing metal into intimate thermal contact between the carbon surface and the cooling tubes even while the novel heat transfer apparatus of this invention is operating at temperatures above the melting temperature of the brazing metal.

Source: Google Patents

35 USC §181 Secrecy Order

Inventor

• 1JOSEPH K. WEEKS

Sensitive facility: Arlington VA (defense contractors)