TECLA: a TEC-enhanced Loop Heat Pipe

摘要

TECLA is an ARTES-5 (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems) ESA project, aimed at developing an LHP with a Peltier cell mounted on it, which is capable of improving its performance through a rearrangement of the heat balance in the system. In particular, benefits are expected in terms of startup and shutdown of the LHP, in terms of temperature regulation capability, and in terms of overall LHP performance improvement through the balancing of its heat leakages (due to LHP backward conductance and/or liquid line parasitic heat leak). A fully equipped breadboard assembly has been designed, built and extensively tested in line with standard telecom satellite requirements. A thermodynamic description of the system is provided in the paper, to highlight the working principles of the assembly. The TECLA overall design (i.e. LHP, TEC, and a mini-HP as thermal link) is described and design choices justification as well as main trade-off results are included. Finally, the test campaign results are presented, focusing mostly on the 30-days, 24/24h thermal-vacuum testing, which allowed to gather a large amount of data. Results are analyzed, and the benefits of the TEC actuation on the LHP are highlighted. Results of TEC automatic control are reported, paying attention to some of the control law peculiar aspects.