Meet the team: ACOULING
In brief
On Earth, electric circuits cool down thanks to the interaction of the released heat with the atmosphere, where convection flows allow the energy transfer from the electronic devices to the environment. In space, however, this does not happen since microgravity makes heat remain close to its source. Drop Your Thesis! team ACOULING is looking at acoustics as an alternative cooling solution.
In-depth
Team ACOULING has five students doing a Master's in aerospace science and Technology at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in Castelldefels (Spain). The goal of their project is to research the potential of acoustic cooling. The team intends to do this by taking advantage of a line of research in fluid dynamics in microgravity that started some years ago at the Space Exploration Lab of UPC. Among the different methods proposed to manage multiphase flows in space. They found that acoustics is a method that stands out for its low cost, low weight, non-intrusiveness, and high performance.
The students plan to apply an acoustic technique to thermal control with the goal of acoustically generating convection in heated gases to control the heat transfer from electronic devices. To do so, the team proposed an experimental setup composed of a test cell and three subsystems. The test cell contains a heater or resistance. A heating subsystem provides power to the heater and controls its temperature and heat flux. A subsystem to generate an acoustic wave controls the frequency and amplitude of the wave generated by a piezoelectric transducer.
The Drop Your Thesis! programme facilitates their access to the ZARM Drop Tower in Bremen. Here they can extend their knowledge on the interaction between acoustics and heat transfer in microgravity by generating convection gas flows in their test cell. To ensure the best possible results the team has already built an experimental setup at the UPC Space Exploration Lab where they will study the results in normal lab conditions at different orientations. The team still must test a lot of parameters in their system to characterise it, but they intend to do perform experimental data analysis and mathematical modelling before and after the drop tower campaign to achieve their objectives.
Is the team up for this engineering challenge? A board consisting of ZARM engineers, ELGRA (European Low Gravity Research Association) members, and ESA personnel thinks the team can achieve their goal safe and sound, using the support and guidance of the DYT! programme.
If you want to hear about team ACOULING their updates, then you can follow the team on their media platforms!
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Acoulingteam