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| | | | | | | Capillary-pumped loop
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Europe mainly concentrated on the development of Capillary Pump Loop (CPL) technology. Several R&D activities were performed within Europe covering the successful design and ground testing of different type of evaporators (flat and cylindrical ones), condensers (high performance, low pressure drop type) and two-phase reservoirs. Complete CPL systems were successfully tested and evaluated on ground.
As two-phase flow behaviour is different under 1-g and zero-g, a flight demonstration of a European CPL (with a flat and a cylindrical evaporator in parallel) was initiated by ESA. This experiment (TPX) flew successfully on-board the US Space Shuttle as Get-Away Special in 1995, providing the first European in-orbit data of such capillary pumped two-phase loops.
Last update: 27 March 2007 | |
| | Related links TPX
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