All-Metallic Phase Change Thermal Management Systems for Transient Spacecraft Loads
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 4
Abstract
In this work, we explore the thermal properties of gallium as an effective phase change material for thermal management applications. Thermal storage and dissipation of gallium manufactured heat sinks were compared to conventional phase change heat sinks. The comparison revealed a 50-fold (80 K versus 1.5 K) potential reduction in temperature during the phase change process due to the high density, thermal conductivity, and latent heat of fusion. The gallium creates shallow thermal gradients when transiently heated, producing a nearly isothermal process. Computational estimates using lumped sum parameters were able to provide simple modeling to predict the results. Gallium based phase change devices offer a combination of low volume, small temperature drops across the device, simplicity of manufacture and design, and high energy storage applications.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request. This includes: MatLab code used for simulations; Excel worksheets used for data reduction and design; experimental data including time and temperature data for all tests, both in atmosphere and vacuum; and SolidWorks files for all components unique to this research. Part numbers for commercially sourced material are also available.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 4 • July 2020
Copyright
This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
History
Received: Sep 18, 2019
Accepted: Feb 5, 2020
Published online: May 8, 2020
Published in print: Jul 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Oct 8, 2020
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