Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator: Design, Manufacturing and Testing.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) is a kind of battery which used Seebeck effect of thermoelectric materials to convert decay heat produced by radioisotope into electricity. It has been widely used in aerospace, deep space/sea exploration, power supply for remote areas, etc.

Research on RTG in China started later and there is no example for its application yet. Therefore, my previous colleagues and I were in the process of some initial exploratory work, which including system design, prototype manufacturing and experiment testing.

In this presentation, I would like to introduce the history and some basic principle of RTG firstly. Then, the design process of a hundreds-class 90Sr-RTG will be shown to represent my previous work. In addition, the manufacturing and test process of a hundreds-class 238Pu-RTG will be displayed.

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