A Mini Hybrid Capillary Pumped Loop
As technology evolves, more and more electronic components are being included on circuit boards (PCBs). More components means more heat and an increase in the digital components creating errors and analogue components having to run with less current.
The heat used to be evacuated by conduction, placing highly dissipative components around the PCB. This constrained the performance of the electrical semiconductor devices, compromising the optimisation of the PCB, affecting the performances of the electronic hardware equipment and making it difficult to design electronic flight hardware.
But electronic hardware designers think they have identified a solution by sing Loop Heat Pipes (LHP) as the most adaptable, mature and well-proved technology.
Currently, mini and micro Loop Heat Pipes are being qualified for space missions aspromising technologies for thermal control of Electronic Semiconductor Devices on PCB´s. But a new TDE activity already proposes a Mini Hybrid Capillary Pump Loop (MH-CPL) as a step forward in the electronic thermal control technology. The MH-CPL is the potential solution compliant to the need of picking up the heat from an increasing number of electronic devices integrated in PCB´s and transporting it to the condenser.
The activity designed the MH-CPL to fit into electronic equipment hardware and then tested it to prove whether it could allow a major improvement of the performances of Electronic Semiconductor Devices and the PCBs and, ultimately, support the evolution of new high throughput satellites.
Several possible designs and modifications were identified to improve the thermal performance of this technology and make it more attractive for the cooling of electronic equipment. Next, the activity hopes to implement and test these modifications, which include the characterisation of several condensers at different sink conditions, the introduction of a longer, more efficient condenser to improve thermal conductivity and to put the hardware through environmental testing.
(Activity T721-401MT closed in 2018)