An Experimental Investigation of Cooling a High Rate Nickel-Cadmium Battery with an Intercell Planar Heat Pipe

摘要

The purpose of the research was to investigate the passive thermal control afforded a battery by the heat pipe. Heat pipes are being considered for thermal control of spacecraft batteries, both as intercell and as battery base plate-to-space radiator heat transfer devices. The report describes the use of a planar (rectangular cross section) stainless steel - water heat pipe as an intercell heat transfer device to cool high-rate nickel-cadmium battery cells. Passive thermal control of battery (cell) temperature was demonstrated and performance of the heat-pipe-cooled cells was compared to that of uncooled cells and cells cooled with a metallic aluminum intercell fin.