airbreaks as radiators

[KerbMav]

I have been thinking, so beware:

1. Could the airbreaks be modded to work like deployable radiators? (How?)

2. Would this change their survivability during reentry?

3. Would this create surreal effects when using them as airbreaks during reentry?

[Streetwind]

Depends on how you define "radiator".

1.) To make a part to which heat flows easily and from which it is radiated easily, you just need ModuleManager. Up the part's heatConductivity a whole lot (default is 0.12, so try something like 0.60), and if you want to be truly silly, pretend it has bulkheadProfile = size2. Also set emissiveConstant = 1.00. This will yield you a part that is minimally better than a solar panel of the same size at rejecting heat, but which more easily takes heat into itself from the vessel than such a panel, provided the vessel is hotter. It would also be completely irrelevant whether or not the airbrake was deployed.

2.) It would not change their survivability at all.

3.) As the airbrakes heat up from reentry heating while deployed into the airstream, they would use their crazy high conductivity to pour the heat into the spacecraft at an alarming rate.

To make a radiator that can cool its parent below its own temperature and avoids conductive backflow, or to make an airbrake which only works as a radiator while deployed, you need to write a plugin. At that point, you're probably better off with one of the existing radiator mods. There's at least two I can think of (Randazzo's Heat Management and Nertea's Heat Control / Near Future Electrical).