ADVANCED COOLING TECHNOLOGIES INC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: S3.07
ADVANCED COOLING TECHNOLOGIES INC — SBIR Phase I award from National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
- Amount
- $124,936
- Agency
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase I
- Topic
- S3.07
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- PA
- Period
- 2014-06-20 → 2014-12-19
Description
The thermal transport requirements for future spacecraft missions continue to increase, approaching several kilowatts. At the same time the heat acquisition areas have trended downward, thereby increasing the incident heat flux. Current incident heat flux for laser diode applications is on the order of 5-10W/cm2, although this is expected to increase towards 50W/cm2. This is a severe limitation for axial groove aluminum/ammonia constant conductance heat pipes (CCHPs). The maximum heat flux in a CCHP is set by the boiling limit, which typically start at 5 W/cm2 for axial grove wicks, and 20-30 W/cm2 for powder metal wicks. The innovation is to develop CCHPs with either a sintered wick, or a hybrid grooved and sintered wick. A hybrid grooved and sintered wick CCHP will allow operating at higher heat fluxes as compared to axial groove design and can also operate against gravity on the planetary surface, operate in space, carrying power over long distances, act as a thermosyphon on the planetary surface for Lunar and Martian landers and rovers, and demonstrate a higher transport capability than an all-sintered wick.