Effect of Noncondensible Gas and Evaporator Mass on Loop Heat Pipe performance

摘要

Loop Heat Pipes (LHPs) are passive two-phase heat transport devices that have been baselined for many spacecraft thermal management applications. The design life of a spacecraft can extend to 15 years or longer, thus requiring a robust thermal management system. /Based on conventional aluminum/ammonia heat pipe experience, there exists a potential of the generation of noncondensible gas in LHPs over the spacecraft lifetime. In addition, some applications would have the LHP evaporator attached directly to spacecraft equipment having large thermal mass.