Speaker
Description
The current set of cold plates on the ESA Columbus laboratory module of the International Space Station have their origin in the cold plates that were developed for Spacelab and also used for the European Retrievable Carrier, Eureca. Considering the very challenging requirements on all subsystems to meet stringent mass targets for human exploration missions beyond LEO, there is a strong interest to have a design with the needed performance but at a lower mass.
Depending on the coolant and the flow, the cold plate is limited to a certain power density, but in order to be able to compare different options on the basis of common criteria, the maximum power density from past missions has been maintained. Nevertheless, if, with new technology, the new design is in a position to cope with higher densities, it is important and needs to be highlighted.
During this project the main objective was to design and test a representative cold plate with an average heat transfer coefficient at least 2200 W/K/m². For this, the project breaks down into 3 tasks:
• Technological choice, design and optimization of the cold plate
• Cold plate production and manufacturing qualification
• Experimental Characterizations (proof pressure test, NDI based on IR measurments, vibration tests and thermal tests)
Finally, the advantages and drawbacks of the cold plates are highlighted by comparison with thermal design options. The paper concludes with an outlook on further development and integration of thin cold plate.
