Emergency relief venting of the infrared telescope liquid helium dewar

Abstract

An analysis is made of the emergency relief venting of the liquid helium dewar of the Spacelab 2 infrared telescope experiment in the event of a massive failure of the dewar guard vacuum. Such a failure, resulting from a major accident, could cause rapid heating and pressurization of the liquid helium in the dewar and lead to relief venting through the emergency relief system. The heat input from an accident is estimated for various fluid conditions in the dewar and the relief process as it takes place through one or both of the emergency relief paths is considered. It is shown that under all reasonable circumstances the dewar will safely relieve itself, and the pressure will not exceed 85 percent of the proof pressure or 63 percent of the burst pressure