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High Heat Flux Electronics Cooling Cycle

Award Information
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Branch: N/A
Contract: NAS3-02080
Agency Tracking Number: 000432
Amount: $600,000.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: N/A
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: N/A
Award Year: 2002
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): N/A
Award End Date (Contract End Date): N/A
Small Business Information
12345 W. 52nd Ave.
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033
United States
DUNS: N/A
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Mark M. Weislogel
 Senior Engineer
 (303) 940-2320
 mmw@tda.com
Business Contact
 ichael E. Karpuk
Title: President
Phone: (303) 940-2301
Email: karpuk@tda.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

The area/volume power densities of packaged electronics will continue to increase until the method of heat rejection is the sole performance limiter. Perhaps the most reliable long-life cooling systems finding applications in space are passive; namely, heat pipes. Unfortunately, the balance between capillary pressure and viscous resistance limits the performance of these devices. Overall fluxes of 100W/cm^2 may be achievable with such systems, but local fluxes will never exceed pool boiling critical heat flux values that peak at approximately 100W/cm^2, but are normally much less. The novel thermal cycle proposed here circumvents this limitation. The cycle is passive yet generates pressure gradients substantially larger (up to 100-fold) than capillary systems. Such pressure differentials may be exploited to achieve very high forced-convection phase-change cooling rates (i.e. flow boiling/spray cooling) in coupled evaporators by direct contact with MCMs, or by more traditional flow-through designs. Heat fluxes obtained in this manner exceed those of capillary systems and are O(500W/cm^2). In Phase I we will demonstrate the high heat flux capability of the cycle exceeding 100W/cm^2 from simulated 2-D surfaces or 3-D MCM stacks. In Phase II we will produce an optimized design for high flux space electronics (i.e. satellite) heat rejection.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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