Mark:
The usual solution is stirring.
If mechanical stirring is out then clever design of the feed can help:
liquid in the small diameter (compared to the tank) feed line is warmer
than that in the main tank and so wants to raise. If the feed line is a
double tube—one tube inside the other—warm liquid will tend to rise in the
annulus while cool liquid from the tank falls down the center tube.
Careful placement of the entrance of the inner tube will result in natural
mixing of the tank.
If you try this you need to design to avoid ingesting gas during the
propellant run.
This works much better with liquid gasses (Lox, Methane, etc.) where the
liquid boils in the double feed line, thus tending to stir the whole tank
as the gas raises. Also note that relying on convection will not work
without a gravity well.
Bill
On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 3:03 PM <mark.spiegl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
ken mason wrote:
[N2O thermal equilibrium]
Very interesting.. you are the first person other than myself to
acknowledge this issue as serious.
I have struggled with N2O temperature striations over and over and over
again. Almost always, my goal is heating the N2O, not cooling it. I have
played with a few possibilities:
-A collapsible rain barrel filled with ice for the supply tank.
-Paint the rocket or static tank black to get help from the sun.
-A magnetic object inside the tank, moved by an external magnet. (like a
chem lab magnetic stirrer on steroids)
-Agitator in the tank... but my machining abilities aren’t good enough for
dynamic seals, etc.
Ken, do you have a practical solution for small amounts of Nitrous?
(20-50lbs)
--MCS