EVALUATING THE BEHAVIOR OF LOOP HEAT PIPE WITH DIFFERENT COMPENSATION CHAMBER CONFIGURATIONS

Following an extensive program to develop, qualify and certify small scale loop heat pipes (LHPs) for future space applications, several design issues and applicability must be considered. The optimization and integration of LHPs have somehow faced certain complications regarding the compensation chamber characteristics. It has been noticed that depending on the geometry of the compensation chamber, integrating the LHP to the space device (electronics, batteries, etc) could be relatively complicated. As an effort in developing LHPs for future space missions, a LHP was designed and tested, where two different configurations of the compensation chamber were experimentally investigated, for a system operating with acetone as the working fluid. The experimental results present the difference on the thermal performance of the LHP that directly affects the loop’s operation temperature. Besides the different thermal behavior verified during the tests, the geometric characteristics of each configuration must be carefully evaluated during the LHP design and when integrating it to the device where the thermal control is required, as well as analyzing which configuration is more indicated for microgravity applications. KEY WORDS: Loop heat pipe, thermal control, capillary evaporator, compensation chamber