Experimental Investigations of an Avionics Cooling System for Aerospace Vehicle

DOI: 10.2514/1.16051 With extensive use of high-power electronic devices in avionics systems, more effective heat transfer systems must bedeveloped tomeet highload heattransfer requirements. Inthis article, acoolingsystemin terms of pulsatingheat pipetechnology ispresented andtestedforthepurposeofheattransferenhancementinavionicssystems.Toachieve the enhancement, pulsating heat pipes with 1.65 mm internal diameter are fabricated and mounted with printed circuit boards onto the avionics chassis wall so that a quick heat transfer path is constructed from the electronic devicestotheexternalheatsink.Experimentalresultsindicatethatpulsatingheatpipeiscapableoflongdistanceand high-powerheattransferfornewgenerationavionicssystems,andtemperaturedifferencesaresignificantlyreduced compared to traditional thermal systems. Pulsating heat pipe performance characteristics, such as temperature fluctuation and orientation, are explored and discussed in this application as well.