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Miniature Cryogenic Valves for a Titan Lake Sampling SystemThe 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.
Document ID
20160005616
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Sherrit, Stewart
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Zimmerman, Wayne
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Takano, Nobuyuki
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Avellar, Louisa
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
May 2, 2016
Publication Date
March 9, 2014
Subject Category
Instrumentation And Photography
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Meeting Information
Meeting: SPIE Smart Structures and Non-Destructive Evaluation
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: March 9, 2014
End Date: March 13, 2014
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Piezoelectric Devices
Titan
Actuators
Cryogenic valves
Liquid sampling

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