Testing of a Low-Cost Loop Heat Pipe Design

摘要

This paper presents and describes the test campaign of a low-cost Loop Heat Pipes (LHP) design. LHP have been around for many decades now. Their potential as passive heat transfer devices has been widely demonstrated in numerous both ground- and space-based applications. One of the major disadvantages of LHP is their inherent high manufacturing cost;this is the main factor why LHP are still confined to niche/high end applications such as thermal management of spacecrafts. This paper proposes to use an alternative manufacturing design for the LHP evaporator, which is the main contributor to the overall LHP cost. Preliminary thermal results are also reported and briefly explained. Future work is needed to confirm the promising results discussed in this paper and address fully other issues such as tolerance of this LHP design to vibrations and accelerations typical of space missions.