Optical methods are frequently used to evaluate the emittance of candidate spacecraft thermal control materials. One new optical method utilizes a portable infrared reflectometer capable of obtaining spectral reflectance of an opaque surface in the range of 2 to 25 microns using a Michelson-Type FTIR interferometer. This miniature interferometer collects many infrared spectra over a short period of time. It also allows the size of the instrument to be small such that spectra can be collected in the laboratory or in the field. Infrared spectra are averaged and integrated with respect to the room temperature black body spectrum to yield emittance at 300 K. Integrating with respect to other black body spectra yields emittance values at other temperatures. Absorption bands in the spectra may also be used for chemical species identification. The emittance of several samples was evaluated using this portable infrared reflectometer, an old infrared reflectometer equipped with dual rotating black body cavities, and a bench top thermal vacuum chamber. Samples for evaluation were purposely selected such that a range of emittance values and thermal control material types would be represented, including polished aluminum, Kapton®, silvered Teflon®, and the inorganic paint Z-93-P. Results indicate an excellent linear relationship between the room temperature emittance calculated from infrared spectral data and the emittance obtained from the dual rotating black body cavities and thermal vacuum chamber. The prospect of using the infrared spectral data for chemical species identification will also be discussed.


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    Title :

    Portable infrared reflectometer for evaluating emittance



    Conference:

    SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM - 2000 ; 2000 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 504 , 1 ; 791-796


    Publication date :

    2000-01-19


    Size :

    6 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



    Portable Infrared Reflectometer for Evaluating Emittance

    Jaworske, D. A. / Skowronski, T. J. / University of New Mexico | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2000



    Portable reflectometer

    FINKEL, M. | AIAA | 1969


    Portable Reflectometer

    Bevans, Jerry T. | AIAA | 1970


    Portable reflectometer.

    Finkel, M. W. | NTRS | 1969