Speakers
Description
Carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite sandwich panels are becoming commonplace in satellite designs due to their high strength and low mass. While excellent for the mechanical engineer they create difficulties for the thermal engineer due to their poor thermal conductance. This presents problems for a traditional satellite architecture where units are mounted on a panel and the conductance of the panel is used to disperse heat.
A solution to solve this problem while maintaining the strength and mass benefits of CFRP is to embed a pulsating heat pipe (PHP) within the sandwich panel. Using such a device promises to raise the in-plane thermal conductivity of a CFRP panel significantly.
A PHP and panel with an area of 1 m2 and thickness of 18mm was designed in a collaboration between Argotec, the University of Pisa and 5M. The project was commissioned by ESA. The PHP consisted of a meandering tube with 12 turns with a centrally located evaporator section on one face and the condenser located on the other face. A PHP breadboard was tested with two different working fluids, acetone and acetone with water, with different filling ratios and in horizontal and vertical orientation. The EM panel was tested in horizontal and vertical orientations in a thermal vacuum chamber.
This presentation describes the lessons learnt during the breadboard PHP testing and engineering model PHP testing.
