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The International Space Station's (ISS) thermal radiators are designed to tolerate ammonia freezing conditions. The cold case thermal design environment for ISS is -92.8°C (-135°F). This environment is below the freezing point of ammonia, the External Active Thermal Control System's (EATCS) working fluid, Tfreeze = -78°C (-108°F). Ammonia contracts 10% by volume when it freezes. Liquid ammonia can fill in this 10% volume and hard pack the individual flow tubes in the radiator. A hard packed flow tube filled with frozen ammonia would have to be able to tolerate this 10% volume increase when the ammonia thaws. The ISS radiator flow tube design accommodates the volume change of thawing ammonia. The most severe condition will arise if the center of a flow tube thaws while the ends remain frozen; thus, any increase in pressure has no axial relief. The volumetric expansion of thawing ammonia will strain the flow tube by exerting a high pressure.

The International Space Station Alpha's (ISSA) thermal radiators are designed to tolerate ammonia freezing conditions. The cold case thermal design environment for ISSA is -92.8°C (-135°F). This environment is below the freezing point of ammonia, the Active Thermal Control System's (ATCS) working fluid, Tfreeze = -78°C (-108°F). Ammonia contracts 10% by volume when it freezes. Liquid ammonia can fill in this 10% volume and hard pack the individual flow tubes in the radiator. A hard packed flow tube filled with frozen ammonia would have to be able to tolerate this 10% volume increase when the ammonia thaws. The ISSA radiator flow tube design accommodates the volume change of thawing ammonia by three mechanisms. The most severe condition will arise if the center of a flow tube thaws while the ends remain frozen; thus, any increase in pressure has no axial relief. The first mechanism to accommodate the volumetric expansion is the straining of the flow tube when exposed to high pressures.

The baseline thermal control configuration for the Space Station Freedom includes a contact heat exchanger to provide efficient heat transfer between the two-phase thermal bus heat collection/delivery system and the radiator panel heat rejection system. The contact heat exchanger provides a dry interface for a modular radiator system with easy on-orbit panel replacement. July 1988 testing of the Space Erectable Radiator System (SERS) at NASA-JSC provided thermal/vacuum data for three full-scale prototype units of a pressurized dry contact heat exchanger design. Derived contact conductance values agreed with predictions and previous element tests and demonstrated high conductance for relatively low pressure levels. A limited amount of data was also obtained below the operating pressure, resulting in contact conductance trends with respect to interface pressure.