Chapter 756: Thermal Material

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Yang Xu watched the excited engineers hugging each other. He looked at the volatile temperature-time curve, slowly opened his mouth, then slowly closed his mouth.

Is this the power of a Fields Medalist?

No wonder the Nobel Prize Committee admires his abilities…

No wonder the entire computational materials field is going crazy because of his theory…

Once upon a time, Yang Xu believed that he was close to winning a Nobel Prize. After all, he did win the “citation prize” from the lithium-sulfur battery cathode material and SG-1 superconducting material.

The reason why the Nobel Prize Committee didn’t consider him was because of his collaborator’s name. One day, he was going to win the Nobel Prize by doing his own research!

But now, he felt weak.

He stared at his own reflection on the floor-to-ceiling windows and shook his head.

Nobel Prize winners are monsters…

As expected, I’m far from winning a prize…

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted.

Academician Yuan walked through the crowd and grabbed his shoulder, and the academician asked anxiously, “Where is Professor Lu?”

Yang Xu looked at the anxious academician. He paused for a second before replying, “Professor Lu… left already.”

Systems Director Zhang, who stood behind Academician Yuan, quickly asked, “Where did he go?”

“Of course he went back to the hotel…”

Where else is he going to go, back to Jinling?

Yang Xu looked at the two men with a strange expression. He didn’t know why they seemed to be worried.

Academician Yuan looked at his assistant behind him and said, “Prepare the car, we’re going to the hotel.”

Systems Director Zhang quickly asked, “What about the experiment?”

Academician Yuan groaned and replied, “Let it continue for 24 hours.”

Even though he knew the experiment was a success, they might as well complete the experiment properly.

Academician Yuan didn’t stay for any longer. With Vice President Zheng following him, he walked out of the warehouse.

…

Mathematics is the language of the gods.

Mathematics is a riddle from the gods, waiting to be solved by humans.

Numbers provide more intuition than witnessing with one’s eyes.

As for the seemingly irregular temperature-time function…

It might seem chaotic in the eyes of others, but for Lu Zhou, this wasn’t even a challenge.

After Lu Zhou left the aerospace warehouse, he sat in Wang Peng’s car and went back to his hotel.

Wang Peng noticed Lu Zhou’s smile from the rearview mirror, and he asked jokingly, “Did something good happen?”

“I guess so.” Lu Zhou sighed and said, “After solving this problem, Moon Palace is finally on track again.”

Wang Peng didn’t ask how Lu Zhou solved the problem; after all, he wouldn’t understand Lu Zhou’s explanation anyway.

He stared out the window and asked, “Where is Professor Yang?”

Lu Zhou waved his hand and said, “You don’t have to wait for him. He doesn’t believe me, so he’s still waiting for the results. The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation will give him a ride back to the hotel.”

Wang Peng: “You made a bet with him again?”

Lu Zhou was surprised.

“How did you know?”

“Of course I know!”

Wang Peng smiled and shook his head. He then started the car and began to drive toward the hotel…

…

After Lu Zhou got back to the hotel, he returned to his room to pack his luggage. He called his assistant Zhao Huan and asked her to book two high-speed rail tickets for him and Yang Xu.

After hanging up the phone, it was almost dinner time, so he went down to the hotel buffet on the first floor.

The elevator doors opened. Lu Zhou was about to step foot into the first-floor lobby when he heard footsteps.

Lu Zhou looked around and saw Academician Yuan walking in with a bunch of people.

Yang Xu was there as well, as well as Academician Yang Zhongquan from Shenyang Machine Tool, and even Vice President Zheng was there as well.

The only person that wasn’t there was Systems Director Zhang. Lu Zhou guessed he was probably still in the laboratory.

Lu Zhou smiled at everyone and was about to greet Academician Yuan. However, before he could speak, Academician Yuan walked up to him and asked, “What exactly did you do?”

Lu Zhou: “First tell me if it worked or not.”

“It worked!” Academician Yuan nodded and said, “It worked very well!”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Actually, it’s nothing special. We increased the loop heat pipe and capillary structure affinity by using N-1 carbon nanotubes. Then we cold-welded the loop heat pipes to various overheating components, and the problem was solved…”

Simply put, it was almost like they applied a layer of “thermal paste” on top of various components. This improved the heat exchange rate between the components and the loop heat pipe.

Of course, this was just a simplified explanation. After all, the heat dissipation of aerospace components was very different from traditional electronics.

Academician Yuan wanted to ask something, but Yang Zhongquan spoke first.

“This N-1 material is quite interesting… It’s copper-coated carbon nanotubes?”

Lu Zhou: “Basically.”

“What’s the thermal conductivity?”

“Around 2,000W/mK.”

In fact, this number could be increased. However, with their current laboratory preparation method, the length of the carbon nanotubes produced was unstable and difficult to control.

Even then, a 2,000W/mK thermal conductivity rating was scary high.

After Yang Zhongquan heard this number, he took a deep breath and spoke in disbelief.

“That’s one hell of a material, 2,000W/mK… That’s several times that of pure copper!”

Silver had the best thermal conductivity among the common metals, but it was expensive to use. Copper had the second-highest thermal conductivity, but it was too heavy. Therefore aerospace loop heat pipes were often made of an aluminum-copper alloy.

Back then, 10-20mm graphite film was considered to have high thermal conductivity, and that thermal conductivity was only around 1,400w/mK. Phone manufacturers went crazy over graphite film for its superior thermal conductivity properties.

A 2,000W/mK thermal conductive powder…

That was almost at the level of diamonds!

Even the industrial manufacturers were j*zzing over graphite film’s thermal conductivity…

Lu Zhou didn’t know a lot about the heat-conducting materials industry. After hearing Yang Zhongquan, he smiled and replied, “It’s not too bad, right? It does the job.”

Yang Zhongquan awkwardly stared at Lu Zhou and hesitated for a while. He scratched his head and made up his mind.

“Oh yeah, about the N-1 carbon nanotubes… What’s the price? Is it expensive?”

Lu Zhou was surprised.

“You’re interested?”

Yang Zhongquan couldn’t help but say, “No sh*t, do you know what this means for the thermal conduction industry?! Just take linear encoders on our high-end machine tools as an example; the thermal expansion directly affects the accuracy alignment! That error is reflected in the final product!”

Even though Lu Zhou didn’t know a lot about manufacturing accuracies, from the way Yang Zhongquan was talking, he could tell that the heat dissipation properties of the N-1 material could mean a lot for the industry.

This was quite random.

He originally thought that the N-1 material would be a high-tensile strength plastic material. He didn’t expect the short carbon nanotubes to have such amazing heat dissipation properties.

After quietly waiting for the old gentlemen to finish speaking, Lu Zhou coughed and spoke.

“I don’t know the price yet, the material is still in its research stage. If it weren’t for the core module, I didn’t even plan on using it. Once we find a way to produce it on a large scale… we can discuss the price then.”

Yang Zhongquan smiled and said, “Done! I’ll wait for your good news then!”

Yang Zhongquan came to the hotel to give his thanks. He didn’t expect to receive even more good news.

Coming all the way from Shenyang was worth every penny!

Vice President Zheng saw that Yang Zhongquan finally finished speaking, so he quickly said, “Professor Lu! There’s something else I want to ask you. You welded all of the components in the core module, what happens if we need to dismantle it in the future?”

Lu Zhou smiled and replied jokingly, “You plan on dismantling it?”

Zheng Xiangdong was stunned. He didn’t realize what Lu Zhou meant.

After he saw Academician Yuan staring at him, he awkwardly smiled and shut his mouth.

The core module would be in space, and no one was going to disassemble it anytime soon…

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