Commercial application of the compliant pad: a space technology innovation

This paper describes the work done to transfer technology developed in the course of the SP-100 Space Reactor Program to commercial applications. During the SP-100 Space Reactor program, under the direction of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an array of technology was developed and several technological needs identified. One such need was for a device to connect materials with high thermal expansion coefficients to materials with low thermal expansion coefficients across a significant temperature gradient. To accomplish this, the 'compliant pad' was developed. The pad was designed to offset or compensate for the differential thermal expansion between the components of a complex thermoelectric cell used to convert the heat from the SP-100 nuclear reactor to electricity. Differential thermal expansion can cause major stresses resulting in boning, bending or cracking of components. The work outlined describes the effort to produce a lower temperature, more affordable compliant pad, and the planned testing of the pads with thermoelectric modules to demonstrate the technology conversion under realistic commercial conditions and determine their heat transfer effectiveness, efficiency, ease of use and reliability.