How Pennsylvania companies are trying to win the new space race

How Pennsylvania companies are trying to win the new space race

An-Li Herring/WESA

Astrobotic’s success is emblematic of broader growth in the space industry, said Bryan Muzyka, manager of sales and marketing at Advanced Cooling Technologies in Lancaster. The company made 1- to 2-foot aluminum pipes that transfer heat away from electronic components in the Peregrine lander, preventing them from overheating.

Advanced Cooling Technologies employs 220 people and has served space companies since 2007, Muzyka said. He noted that the company has continued to grow as the government and private sector ramp up investment in space exploration and satellite development. This winter, the manufacturer will open a 32,000-square-foot facility to expand production.

“There’s a lot of really cool missions that are going to really help humanity in the long term that we’re just starting to kind of scratch the surface on,” Muzyka said.

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Lancaster research facility testing Lehigh University carbon capture technology

By: Cris Collingwood
January 9, 2023

Illustration of CO2 capture system being tested by Advanced Cooling Technologies – illustration by Josh Charles –

Advanced Cooling Technologies is working with Lehigh University to test a process to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Josh Charles, lead research and design engineer for the Lancaster-based company, said with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, his team is testing a direct air CO2 capture mechanism developed by Arup Sen Gupta, PC Rossin professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lehigh University. While in the concept phase, Charles said his team is testing the system to see if it can pull carbon out of the air and store it to improve the environment and fight climate change. So far it is working. “The removal of CO2 is crucial to curbing carbon emissions, one of the contributing greenhouse gases,” he said. The Small Business Innovative Research funding has allowed Charles and his team to develop the project. The test set up was designed to scale up and use low-voltage renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power to capture the air. The system, he said, pulls air through small spherical balls made of a resin. The carbon is captured by running an alkaline solution through the balls. It can then be stored in containers in old oil or gas wells underground. “The typical method to capture carbon uses heat which takes energy,” he said. “We are doing it without heat.” The process uses solar or wind power instead, which makes the process more flexible and can be used in more places. Sen Gupta said the use of electricity results in minimal energy use. The process uses absorbent material that air passes through, but the CO2 doesn’t. “The filter capacity is important,” he said. Most CO2 comes from industrial stacks, Sen Gupta said. There are systems that can capture 15% at that point. What he was looking for was a way to capture as much as possible from air anywhere. “If we can establish something where we can capture as much as 15% from anywhere, we can transform change,” he said. “This is a small scale right now,” Charles said. “Once we get reimbursement for phase 2, we will ramp up the testing on a larger scale.” The proposals are being written and Advanced Cooling Technologies hopes to have funding by this summer. The system is set up in a shipping container-sized contraption. “It’s meant to be capable of being placed anywhere,” he said. The project is scalable, Charles said. The unit will capture a minimum of 500 tons of CO2 per year. “It could potentially scale to thousands,” he said, as the units can be built larger and stack on top of one another. “Dr. Sen Gupta envisions deploying this anywhere, especially in third world countries where they are experiencing climate change,” Charles said. “If they want to be part of the {climate change} solution, they can use it.” Domestically, Charles said large companies will be able to use this on a large scale to reduce emissions, but anyone can use it on a smaller scale. “The challenge,” Sen Gupta said, “is when we remove it {from the air}, where does it go. Right now, we are looking at underground.” Charles said storing the carbon underground shouldn’t hurt the environment. “Look at natural gas. We pull it out for use so then we could fill that space with CO2.” He added that there is a concern that CO2 could leak out which would undo what the system has done by removing it. However, “there is no contamination risk because we are putting it back where it came from, just more concentrated.”

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ACT’s First FDA SBIR Contract- Plasma Sterilization System

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is pleased to announce that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will fund ACT’s Phase I SBIR proposal, “Ozone Plasma Sterilization System with Plasma-In-Lumen Technology”.  In this project, ACT and Rutgers University will develop an ozone plasma-based sterilization system with the potential to replace conventional Ethylene Oxide (EtO) sterilization.

EtO sterilization is the most common method of sterilization used in medical equipment facilities because it is universally effective on any medical equipment containing heat-sensitive polymers and/or having high aspect ratios, like long lumens. However, due to the high cost of EtO, high toxicity and the length of time it takes to perform the sterilization using this method, the FDA SBIR program is funding research to develop alternative sterilization solutions.  ACT and Rutgers University have identified an ozone plasma sterilization system with plasma-in-lumen technology (Figure 1) to be one innovative alternative solution offering many improvements over EtO.

ACT and Rutgers University’s proposed system uses plasma to generate ozone (O₃), a strong sterilizing agent. The plasma is generated inside a sterilization pouch that is made from a flexible sheet. The ozone plasma-based sterilization technique is also expected to sterilize medical scopes with long lumens. The system can also accommodate multiple pouches at once to increase sterilization throughput.

Dr. Yue Xiao will serve as the Principal Investigator and will work closely with the collaborators at RU: Prof. Aaron Mazzeo is a pioneer in flexible plasma reactors for decontamination and treatment, and Prof. Francois Berthiaume is an expert in metabolic and tissue engineering with extensive characterization experience.

“ACT’s research and development in non-thermal plasmas include chemical synthesis, methane reforming, and plasma surface treatment for improved aviation fuels,” said Dr. Rich Bonner, Vice President of R&D.  “This new program will extend our non-thermal plasma research applications to include the medical field.”

Dr. Bill Anderson, Chief Engineer, added “ACT has more than $125 million in product sales from technologies seeded by SBIR and STTR programs.  When completed, we hope to use this program to expand our offerings in the medical technology field.”

Learn more- ACT R&D

LANCASTER COMPANY FILLED VITAL ROLE IN NASA’S DART MISSION

NASA’s successful mission in late September to change the trajectory of the asteroid Dimorphos made world headlines. Unlike in the 2021 film “Don’t look up,” Dimorphos was not a threat to collide with Earth. But DART – an acronym for Double Asteroid RedirectionTest – was the first full-scale demonstration of planetary defense technology. And a Lancaster-based company played a key role in the historic operation.

Advanced Cooling Technologies Inc. developed DART’s thermal management system, working with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

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By: Paula Wolf
Paula Wolf is a freelance writer
October 25, 2022

ACT Attends Princeton’s Combustion School

Recently, ACT R&D Engineer Patryk Radyjowski attended Princeton University’s 2022 Combustion Institute Summer School on Combustion and the Environment. He had the opportunity to present ACT research on Swiss-Roll technology during a poster session where attendees shared their research and developments in the combustion technology field. Since 2010 the summer school has familiarized groups of students, researchers, and young professionals in the field with the technical areas of combustion theory, experiment, computation, fundamentals, and applications from around the world. This class brings everyone together for a concentrated 5-days of learning and networking.

ACT continues to advance innovation in the field of combustion, leveraging these types of invaluable training sessions, learning opportunities and partnerships with academia. Patryk and the team at ACT on the REMEDY-APRA-E funded project are working to utilize advanced combustion technology to reduce greenhouse emissions from gas flares for a more sustainable future! ACT was grateful to participate in such a distinguished program in the combustion community.

Learn more about ACT’s R&D Team

Patryk presenting on combustion research at ACT during a poster session

Patryk and other combustion school attendees

ACT Wins Platinum Award for High Efficiency ECU

Friday, September 9, 2022– Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. announced today that its High EER ECU was recognized among the best by the 2022 Military + Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards. An esteemed and experienced panel of judges from the aerospace and defense community recognized Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc as a Platinum honoree.

ACT has developed a high energy efficiency ratio (EER) ECU to minimize electrical energy consumption for applications that require improved efficiency.

“On behalf of the Military + Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards, I would like to congratulate Advanced Cooling Technologies, on their Platinum–level honoree status,” said Military + Aerospace Electronics Editor in Chief John Keller. “This competitive program allows Military + Aerospace Electronics to celebrate and recognize the most innovative products impacting the aerospace and defense community this year.”

Historically, energy efficiency for environmental control units (ECUs) has not been a major consideration for most military applications. In a lot of cases, the cooling system can rely on shore power which poses minimal threat to most military operations if the energy consumption of the cooling equipment is sub-optimal. More recently, there is a substantial push for military equipment to become more mobile and deployable where electrical power sources are derived from fossil fuel-burning generators. In these applications improving energy efficiency can play a significant role in saving the lives of soldiers. Fuel convoys are often targeted by the opposition as a means to weaken forward operating bases. This places a significant price on every ounce of fuel required to be consumed in theater.

ACT has developed a high energy efficiency ratio (EER) ECU to minimize electrical energy consumption for applications that require improved efficiency. The ECU employs a number of techniques commonly used in commercial HVAC units, with a focus on the level of ruggedization required for military applications. Digital compressors, air economizers, and reduced pressure drop evaporator and condenser coils are just some of the technologies employed in the unit to maximize the EER. The result is a highly ruggedized, military ECU that rivals some of the best commercial HVAC systems in energy efficiency.

About Military + Aerospace Electronics

Military + Aerospace Electronics is the leading media resource serving program and project managers, engineering managers, and engineers involved in electronic and electro-optic design for military, space, and aviation applications.  Military + Aerospace Electronics magazine delivers time-sensitive news, in-depth analyses, case studies, and real-world applications of new products, industry opinion, and the latest trends in the use of mil-spec, rugged and commercial off-the-shelf components, subsystems, and systems.

About ACT

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. We serve our global customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse Markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling and Calibration Equipment. We specialize in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions that meet the unique needs of each customer.

NASA SBIR Phase II Award-Space Modular Electronics Cooling

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today the funding of a NASA SBIR Phase II program to develop and mature the cooling technologies used in the Modular Electronics Units (MEUs) used in spacecraft. These MEUs will enable future space power systems and exploration missions. Under this program, ACT will explore multiple advanced thermal management technologies that will mitigate electronic component hot spots, enabling higher power density electronics to operate in space conditions. The proposed cooling system for MEUs consists of the following key components:

• Pulsating Heat Pipe (PHP) heat spreaders: a passive heat-spreading device using oscillation of a two-phase working fluid within a capillary serpentine channel to deliver heat from the card center to the edges (as demonstrated in Figure 1). The thermal conductance of a PHP is generally 8-10 times higher than a conventional aluminum plate.

ACT has been developing PHPs under many internal R&D, commercial, and government-funded programs; this NASA SBIR Phase II will enable ACT to apply the PHP research to space applications.

• Isothermal Card Edge Wedge locks (ICE-Loks^TM): wedge locks that provide an enhanced thermal interface between the conduction card and the chassis rails.

ACT’s ICE-Lok™ wedge lock design has an additional patented conduction pathway (as compared to the state-of-the-art wedge lock competitors) to improve heat transfer through the card-chassis interface.

• Chassis with Embedded Cooling: will also passively and effectively transfer heat from the chassis rails to the ultimate heat sink on a spacecraft.

In addition to PHPs, another heat-spreading technology that will be further developed in this program includes ACT’s HiK™ Plates (heat-pipe-embedded, high conductivity plates). Their thermal performance evaluations will be based on both high and low heat-flux conditions while considering known space and vacuum conditions. ACT will also develop an advanced enclosure with embedded cooling to minimize the overall thermal resistance of the system from the conduction cards to the ultimate heat sink on a spacecraft.

The development of this technology and standardization will allow engineers flexibility within systems. It will also provide the cost benefits of utilizing a standard, decreased downtime by maintaining temperatures below the maximum for operation; this will prevent high-power electronics systems from overheating when operating for long durations. According to Dr. Kuan-Lin Lee, the Principal Investigator for this project, the proposed technologies have a wide range of applications, including embedded cooling  3U boards, Space VPX systems, and electric propulsion systems. Many space missions/systems will directly benefit from this research, including the Gateway-Artemis, lunar and Martian habitats, solar-electric propulsion, electrified aircraft propulsion, CubeSat thermal management, and future International Space Station (ISS)-type missions (e.g., orbiting habitats).

Award Information

Spacecraft Thermal Control

Learn More

• ACT ICE-LoK^TM products
• ACT HiK^TM Plate products
• ACT’s Electronics Cooling Solutions

ACT Advances Energy Research with Over $1 Million from U.S. Department of Energy

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has been awarded six new Department of Energy (DOE) SBIR and STTR Phase I contracts, for a total of $1.2 million. The awards will advance research the following programs:

• “Swiss-roll Ammonia Reformer for Gas Turbines” (University of Southern California)
• “Advanced Cooling Solutions for High-Frequency Medium-Voltage Planar Transformers” (University of Colorado Boulder)
• “Shielding of Electronic Circuits from Space Radiation via Additive Manufacturing” (Binghamton University and North Carolina State University)
• “Direct CO2 Air Capture Using Acid-Base Ion-Exchange and Low-Grade Heat” (Lehigh University)
• “Thermal Management of Low-Temperature Semiconductor Arrays” (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)
• “Integrated High Operating Temperature Storage (HOTS) System for Process Waste Heat”

According to Dr. Richard W. Bonner, Vice President of R&D at ACT, “These awards demonstrate our commitment to expand into new and diverse energy-related research areas. The application of the Swiss-roll to ammonia reforming will allow us to further increase our competency in compact reformers and combustors.”

Ammonia (NH₃) is a promising carbon-free energy source for future power generation. However, direct air-ammonia combustion has proven challenging to implement in gas turbine applications due to inherently slow reaction rates. ACT’s concept is to pre-crack part of the ammonia fuel into a hydrogen-rich reformate using a novel reformer and waste heat from the gas turbine. The partially cracked fuel will improve the reaction rates to levels that are on par with other carbon-based fuels.  More information on this and other related technologies can be found on our new web page, Combustion, Fuel Research, and Non-Thermal Plasma (https://www.1-act.com/innovations/combustion-synfuels/).

In 2011, ACT was awarded a Tibbets award from the Small Business Administration (SBA).  SBA presents the awards nationally to small companies and individuals that have advanced technical innovation and economic growth through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.  “Many of ACT’s products were initially developed on SBIR and STTR programs.  Space Copper-Water Heat Pipes were originally developed on a NASA Marshall Phase II SBIR, while ICE-Lok™ an enhanced Wedge lock, was developed on an Air Force SBIR.” said Dr. William G. Anderson, Chief Engineer for R&D at ACT. “We continue to commercialize SBIR research, recently achieving product sales of $115 million from technology developed on SBIR and STTR programs.”

More information on ACT’s R&D efforts can be found at https://www.1-act.com/innovations/, and ACT’s technical papers https://www.1-act.com/resources/tech-papers/.

About ACT

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. We serve our global customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse Markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling and Calibration Equipment. We specialize in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions that meet the unique needs of each customer.

ACT Announces $7 million Contract with Boeing

Lancaster, PA, May 2022 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), a leading provider of innovative thermal solutions, announces today their collaboration with Boeing to update a sophisticated weapon system for the U.S. Military and international partners. Boeing contracted ACT to manufacture a thermal solution for onboard guidance technology used on the Harpoon and SLAM-ER cruise missile systems. Thermal management is a critical enabling technology as these systems become more capable and precise. This contract represents a multi-year production phase which was executed after reaching major milestones in the preceding engineering development phase. Boeing and ACT worked closely throughout design maturation to optimize the solution for performance, mass, and space claim.

“ACT is excited for the opportunity to innovate as a key partner alongside Boeing in this unique thermal endeavor for their sophisticated cruise missile programs,” said Seth Ryberg, Sales Engineer.

ACT’s thermal management hardware is essential for maintaining safe operational temperatures of the missile guidance systems and ensuring mission success.

Greg Hoeschele, Lead Engineer of Product Development, comments, “We’ve spent the past year working closely with the team at Boeing, prototyping and getting this innovative and highly-reliable thermal solution where it needs to be for mass production efforts. I’m proud to say we’re there!”

ACT’s Product Development team has scheduled the first deliveries for 2023.

Military + Aerospace Electronics Article

Advanced Cooling Technologies Announces New Hawaiian Applications of its Wrap Around Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers

LANCASTER, PA: Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) is pleased to announce that its energy recovery wrap-around heat exchanger (WAHX) system has been selected for use in two separate enhanced dehumidification applications in Hawaii.

A newly renovated Hawaii Island resort, a once iconic tourist destination, elected to use several of ACT’s WAHXs in their facilities as they continue their rebuilding efforts following a 2011 tsunami. The tsunami destroyed sixteen of the resort’s structures and damaged another forty.¹ Such key infrastructure as electrical and cooling solutions were lost in the disaster. After more than a decade of rebuilding efforts, the resort plans to reopen its doors in 2023. ACT’s WAHX products will provide critical thermal management support for guests and employees at one of Hawaii’s famed tourist spots.

The project was specified and configured by ACT’s local Hawaii HVAC representative Norman S. Wright. They provided the renovation project team with complete air handling systems that incorporated the ACT WAHX.  The NSW team worked with local mechanical engineers and the resort facilities team.

Hawaii is a prime application region for WAHX technology. A WAHX effectively enhances the air Dedicated Outside Air handling Systems (DOAS) ability to dehumidify incoming outside air and provides free passive reheating of the airstream; this process results in dry neutral air temperature for delivery to indoor spaces. With Hawaii’s humidity, this enhanced dehumidification process is essential in creating a comfortable environment for resort guests. The WAHX has added benefits in terms of system efficiencies; the addition of a WAHX allows for a smaller tonnage air handling unit (AHU), offers significant energy savings, and lowers maintenance costs by way of its passive, no-moving-parts functionality. The Hawaiian resort found great value in all of these benefits as they opted for ACT’s WAHX.

Additionally,

Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (otherwise known as Honolulu International Airport, or HNL)

WAHX as its primary energy recovery heat exchanger. The addition of WAHX products comes at a time when the state’s airports are undergoing a $2.7B state-wide modernization effort.² HNL serves as the largest and principal airport in the state, and its infrastructure has been the focus of these ongoing efforts as officials look to outpace its growth in traffic. The split loop thermosyphon (SLT) WAHX will include reheat control and serve as an important energy savings solution for HNL’s infrastructure.

ACT’s SLT WAHX products are passive solutions that are active-controlled and provide the best method of energy recovery and dehumidification for industrial and commercial applications. The controlled SLT is a cost-effective solution that allows for a high flow rate for larger coil sizes, and it maximizes savings while preventing overheating of the conditioned air. These cost-saving measures are critical for airports of HNL’s size, and that necessity grows even greater when considering the energy costs in Hawaii; the nation’s fiftieth state reaches a peak of 34 ¢/kWh, which is the most expensive energy cost of any state and triples the national average.³ Energy savings via efficient thermal management methods are therefore essential to the modernization efforts of Hawaii’s largest airport.

As industries explore new means of improving their systems, ACT and its team of thermal management experts will continue to develop enhanced cooling system and energy recovery solutions that meet the performance and efficiency needs of its customers. With these latest applications, many visitors to Hawaii will appreciate the benefits of these cooling solutions firsthand.

About ACT:

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our global customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. We serve our customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling, and Calibration Equipment. ACT specializes in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions.

Research & Development remains the essential ingredient for our continued success. R&D continues to lead the product and market diversification efforts and shapes the innovative solutions provided to our customers.  A snapshot of current R&D programs reveals diverse activities ranging from developing thermal protection materials for space reentry vehicles to investigating nanoscale heat transfer in next-generation electronic devices to designing mega-watt class cooling systems for power plants.

References:

1. Burnett J. 10 years later: Recalling the 2011 tsunami. Hawaii Tribune-Herald. https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2021/03/12/hawaii-news/10-years-later-recalling-the-2011-tsunami/. Published March 12, 2021. Accessed August 2, 2021
2. Daniel K Inouye International Airport Modernisation, Hawaii. Airport-technology.com. https://www.airport-technology.com/projects/daniel-k-inouye-international-airport-modernisation-hawaii/. Accessed August 2, 2021.
3. Spangler S. Hawaii’s electricity the most expensive in the nation, but there are ways to save. KHON2. https://www.khon2.com/local-news/hawaiis-electricity-most-expensive-in-the-nation-but-there-are-ways-to-save/. Published February 10, 2021. Accessed August 2, 2021.

Introducing the Largest Dedicated Facility for Space Flight Constant Conductance Heat Pipes

SINGLE LARGEST FACILITY EXPANSION FOR DEDICATED PRODUCT MANUFACTURING

Lancaster, PA, February 2022 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. announced today that it has undergone an expansion at its Lancaster facility. This will be the company’s largest facility expansion since its inception in 2003. The three-part expansion is highlighted by the acquisition of a 32,000 square foot area, which will be used as a dedicated, state-of-the-art aerospace product manufacturing space. ACT will quadruple the current hardware output to support continued growth in the aerospace market. ACT’s John Hartenstine, Vice President of Operations said “It’s the first of its kind, for both us [ACT] as well as the aerospace industry.” The company plans to make a formal announcement in the second quarter after construction has begun.

The second part of the expansion is to renovate the previous Red Rose Credit Union at the front entrance of the Burle Business Park. The third and final part of this expansion project is additional space for ACT’s Research and Development (RD) department to have a dedicated ITAR space and accommodate department growth. The department employs a total of twenty-six (26) engineers and is continuing to hire according to the company website. “We have outgrown our current office, laboratory, and production facilities and are excited to have found these new spaces in order to provide our employees with a better overall work environment.” Said Diane Baldassarre, Vice President of Administration.

The entire expansion project will make ACT’s total footprint 137,000 ft² in Lancaster, PA. ACT did acquire a company in York, PA (previously Tekgard, Inc.) in early 2021 that has an additional 60,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space. The York facility maintained existing operations, manufacturing ruggedized military and industrial thermal management equipment, and is beginning to integrate design and manufacturing capabilities of other products and technologies to best serve ACT’s growth.

Additionally, ACT is also announcing successful recertification for ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D. The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by accredited registrar Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets. The annual surveillance audit is an in-depth dive into many aspects of the manufacturing process, including Design Control, Management Responsibility, Customer Satisfaction, Contract Review, Quality Planning, Production Process Control and Purchasing. This re-certification ensures ACT is compliant to industry QMS standards.

ACT’s Quality certifications can be found at: https://www.1-act.com/act-quality/

About ACT

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our global customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. We serve our customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling, and Calibration Equipment. ACT specializes in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions.

Research & Development remains the essential ingredient for our continued success. R&D continues to lead the product and market diversification efforts and shapes the innovative solutions provided to our customers.  A snapshot of current R&D programs reveals diverse activities ranging from developing thermal protection materials for space reentry vehicles to investigating nanoscale heat transfer in next-generation electronic devices to designing mega-watt class cooling systems for power plants.

Surviving the Lunar Night

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is excited to announce a $5 Million NASA Sequential Phase II SBIR Program Award, “Development of Lunar Vehicle and Payload Thermal Control Systems for Extreme Lunar Environments”.  As part of this project, ACT is subcontracting Astrobotic to provide their industry experience with lunar landers and rovers, including system-level architecture and critical design requirements. Astrobotic will validate the technology using their Peregrine lander, Griffin lander, and CubeRover thermal system architectures as a baseline.

The lunar day and night cycle poses a significant thermal challenge to small, low-power payloads, rovers, and landers. Due to the slow rotation of the lunar surface relative to the Sun, the environmental temperature drops to below 100K for approximately 14 Earth days. In order to enable long-duration science missions on the lunar surface, it is necessary to maintain the electronics above survival temperature during the lunar night.  The Apollo astronauts went to the moon during the early lunar morning, which is a relatively benign thermal environment. In contrast, lunar landers and rovers must be able to survive and function over multiple lunar day/night cycles. It has been estimated that for every watt of power supplied by batteries during the lunar night, an additional 5kg of battery mass is required.  Surviving multiple lunar cycles without the use of active power sources for heating and cooling will require the advanced thermal management techniques that will be developed in this program.  The proposed program will develop systems that operate during the day to reject waste heat with high thermal conductance, and survive the lunar night with high thermal resistance to minimize heat losses.

Figure 1. Conceptual illustration of combined Thermal Switch and Variable Conductance Thermal Control System for Lunar Landers and Rovers. (a) During the day the electronics are generating heat and the thermal switch and VCHP is ON. Heat is rejected to the radiator and stored in the liquid Phase Change Material (PCM). (b) At night, the thermal switch is OFF, and the VCHP is shut down, with Non-Condensable Gas (NCG) blocking the condenser and adiabatic section. Thermal resistance between electronics and sink is maximum. The PCM cools down and freezes, supplying heat to maintain the temperature of the electronics.

The principal objectives of the proposed program are to develop high technology readiness level (TRL) thermal “toolbox” elements and develop complete thermal control system designs for lunar landers, rovers, and habitats.

The reference architecture, illustrated in Figure 1, consists of passive elements for (1) Heat Acquisition, Heat Collection from electronics, (2) Heat Transport, (3) Heat Rejection, and (4) Heat Storage.   These are toolbox elements, that can be combined in a number of different ways, depending on particular design/mission needs and constraints.

Devices to be incorporated in the thermal control systems include:

• Heat Acquisition: High Conductivity (HiK™) plates with embedded heat pipes, space copper/water heat pipes, ICE-Lok™ improved Wedge locks
• Heat Transport: Loop Heat Pipes (LHPs) with Thermal Control Valves (TCVs), Warm and Cold Reservoir Variable Conductance Heat Pipes (VCHPs), VCHP loops, and Two-Phase Thermal Switches (TPTS)
• Heat Storage: Phase Change Material (PCM) heat sinks
• Heat Rejection: Radiators with embedded Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs), LHP radiators, and Variable View Factor Radiators

“Since 2010, ACT R&D has been working with NASA Marshall and NASA Johnson Space Centers to develop cutting edge thermal control systems for Lunar Landers and Rovers,” said Bill Anderson, Chief Engineer at ACT, and Principal Investigator for the program.  This program gives us an opportunity to further mature ACT’s technologies and integrate them into complete Lunar thermal control systems.”

The thermal control systems will be jointly developed by ACT and Astrobotic and tested in Astrobotic’s lunar test chambers. “At the heart of lunar landers, rovers, and other lunar mobility systems is a complex thermal management system that enables us to operate in the extreme heat and extreme cold of the lunar surface,” said Jay Eckard, Technical Project Manager at Astrobotic, “We’re really excited about the work we are doing with ACT, not only for the capabilities this technology can add to our own product lines but also what it can provide to the entire space industry.”

SPACE NEWS ARTICLE

About ACT:

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our global customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. We serve our customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling, and Calibration Equipment. ACT specializes in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions.

Research & Development remains the essential ingredient for our continued success. R&D continues to lead the product and market diversification efforts and shapes the innovative solutions provided to our customers.  A snapshot of current R&D programs reveals diverse activities ranging from developing thermal protection materials for space reentry vehicles to investigating nanoscale heat transfer in next-generation electronic devices to designing mega-watt class cooling systems for power plants.

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. Set to Receive $3,300,000 in Funding to Develop Technologies to Reduce Methane Emissions

Advanced cooling technologies, inc. Set to Receive $3,300,000 in Funding to Develop Technologies to Reduce Methane Emissions
Funding Awarded as Part of ARPA-E Program Seeking to Create Cleaner Solutions for Oil, Gas, and Coal Sectors

Lancaster Pennsylvania – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has been selected to receive $3,300,000.00 in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding is part of an ARPA-E program unveiled earlier this year—the “Reducing Emissions of Methane Every Day of the Year” (REMEDY) program—that aims to reduce methane emissions in the oil, gas, and coal industries.

ACT together with ExOne Company, University of Southern California (USC), and Zeeco, proposes a novel Swiss-roll incinerator system that can achieve 99.5% flare gas combustion efficiency under a wide flare gas flow rate and concentration.

“The concept of Swiss-roll combustor was first proposed by Prof. Felix Weinberg in 1974 and has been studied extensively by Prof. Paul Ronney at USC,” said Dr. Chien-Hua Chen, Lead Engineer at ACT.  “We are very excited for the opportunity to collaborate with ExOne, USC, and Zeeco on this ARPA-E project and have the opportunity to impact global emissions.”

“Materials and manufacturing have always been the major challenges of the advanced heat-recirculating combustor,” said Dr. Patryk Radyjowski, R&D Engineer at ACT.  “We believe the recent advancement of manufacturing can solve this long-term challenge.”

The REMEDY funding that Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) will receive will be spread across two stages of the program over three years. Stage 1 is will focus on lab-based tests confirming the operability of technical proposals, approaches, and system components. Stage 2 will expand the scale of testing and ultimately include field tests.

Read the POWER publication here

About ACT:

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our global customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. We serve our customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling, and Calibration Equipment. ACT specializes in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions.

Research & Development remains the essential ingredient for our continued success. R&D continues to lead the product and market diversification efforts and shapes the innovative solutions provided to our customers.  A snapshot of current R&D programs reveals diverse activities ranging from developing thermal protection materials for space reentry vehicles to investigating nanoscale heat transfer in next-generation electronic devices to designing mega-watt class cooling systems for power plants.

ACT Supports Axiom Space’s Development Of World’s First Commercial Space Station

Top 20 fastest growing companies in the region two years running

Lancaster, Pennsylvania- Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) was honored by Central Penn Business Journal in their 2021 Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies as the 17^th Fastest Growing Company in Central Pennsylvania. While ACT has appeared on this top 50 list a number of times over the past decade, they are especially thrilled be in the top 20 fastest growing companies in the region two years running. The Company is a leading provider of thermal management solutions for diverse industries including Aerospace, Defense, Energy, HVAC, Medical, and Industrial Automation.

ACT is proud to partner with industry-leading customers who share its values of innovation, teamwork and customer care. The Company’s strength in solving complex thermal problems and turning innovative designs into cost-effective and reliable manufactured solutions has gained it the trust of numerous long-term partners. This award is received as the Company is working on its 7^th expansion within the BURLE Business Park.

Largest Order of 8-ton ECUs in Company History

York, PA: Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) will build a total of 400 plus Tekgard 8-ton Environmental Control Units (ECUs) for Hunter Defense Technologies Global (HDT Global) by the end of 2021. While ACT’s Tekgard division has manufactured ECUs for HDT since 2006, this is a dramatic increase in annual production.

This order features the new Tekgard Skid-mounted ECUs, which allow warfighters to easily transport and unload the units from trucks or Humvees wherever a US Army’s Standardized Integrated Command Post System (SICP) is required. This is a significant mobility benefit over the previous trailer-mounted versions.

ACT’s York-based Tekgard Division was able to fulfill this order because of its dedicated, cross-trained manufacturing team. Teams from the engineering, purchasing, quality assurance, and production departments, including Tekgard’s in-house testing facilities, all worked together to meet the challenges imposed by the increased demand. Their strong vendor base, flexible work cells, and committed staff supported the companies ability to provide record numbers of high-quality, highly-reliable ECUs to warfighters.

Mar, a mechanical assembler, for Advanced Cooling Technologies Tekgard brand, assembles a motor for an 8-ton ECU.

Advanced Cooling Technologies Recognized as an Outstanding Supplier by General Dynamics

LANCASTER, PA– Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc (ACT) has been recognized by General Dynamics Mission Systems (GD-MS), a leading global aerospace and defense company, for their work in developing thermal management solutions for critical spaceflight hardware that will support a major national security project.

“We are pleased to award Advanced Cooling Technologies with the Outstanding Supplier Performance Award,” said Richard Gray, Director, Trusted Space Solutions National Systems Programs at General Dynamics. “This project brought with it several challenges and we were very impressed with ACT’s capabilities and how their team executed and supported the program.”

The partnership between ACT and GD-MS will ultimately provide critical avionics systems for numerous government satellites. This program includes GD-MS cutting edge electronics design, used to add on-board processing capabilities for faster military intelligence; this capability leads to more localized waste heat, which requires enhanced heat spreading. With the support of ACT-engineered Space Copper Water Heat Pipes (SCWHPs) GD-MS was able to maintain safe operating temperatures while meeting overall project and flight schedules for their customer.

“This project was especially exciting for our team as it was the first project using our most advanced, GEN III, space copper water heat pipes” said Jens Weyant, VP of Product Development at Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. “GEN III represents the most proven, space flight ready manufacturing techniques to meet the rigorous environmental challenges”

“We are proud to support the General Dynamics team in developing and providing this mission-critical, enabling technology, in support of their mission. With close collaboration with the General Dynamics team, we were able to swiftly work through challenges as they cropped up. We look forward to supporting any future missions they may have.” Said Ryan Spangler- Lead Engineer, Orbital Systems at Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc.

General Dynamics estimates that the project will be complete by 2024 and they will continue to partner with ACT throughout that timeline.

“Receiving this award from General Dynamics is very meaningful to our team” added Weyant, “It represents the values we strive to uphold as a company: Innovation, Teamwork, and Customer Care.”

To learn more about the Advanced Cooling Technologies and their proven spacecraft thermal control products visit: https://www.1-act.com/products/spacecraft-thermal-control-products/

NASA Awards Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. $3.7M Contract for VIPER Mission

LANCASTER, Pa., Sept. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — NASA has awarded Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) a $3.7 million contract to finalize the design and fabricate the flight thermal control system for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER.

Advanced Cooling Technologies Inc. (ACT) has developed and will be building the flight thermal management system for NASA’s VIPER which includes a combination of custom-engineered Loop Heat Pipes (LHPs), Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs) and Aluminum Honeycomb Radiator Panels. Photo Credit: NASA & Advanced Cooling Technologies

PR Newswire Press Release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-awards-advanced-cooling-technologies-inc-3-7m-contract-for-viper-mission-301371728.html?tc=eml_cleartime

Advanced Cooling Technologies and Tekgard Announce Company Merger

Expanded Thermal Management Capabilities Now Meet All Temperature Ranges

LANCASTER, PA (March 4, 2021) – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), an industry-leading thermal management solutions company, announced the acquisition of Tekgard, Inc. The York, PA-based engineering and manufacturing company specializes in environmental control systems optimized to meet the harsh environments faced during remote military operations.

The acquisition is another milestone in ACT’s diversity of technology and product development that now includes component and system capabilities to meet all temperature conditions. ACT and Tekgard share highly complementary company values, a customer-first mindset, and a culture of innovation.

“Meeting the needs of our customers and surpassing their expectations is at the core of our business,” said Jon Zuo, president, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. “The addition of the Tekgard team will bring expanded products and technologies, and also an unmatched service experience for all customers.”

“Our commitment to customer care is deep-rooted because of who our customers are,” added Mike Bahn, president, Tekgard, Inc. “This has always been important to our team because we understand the sacrifices our customers make by serving our country. Knowing that ACT shares these values was motivational for us in joining our teams.”

As one company, ACT and Tekgard will maintain separate, but closely located facilities, with integrated resources to enhance product design, engineering, manufacturing, and testing. Following the acquisition, the industry can expect to see integrated product system solutions that blend technologies from both companies and achieve enhanced energy efficiency, performance, and reliability across all applications.

The acquisition was finalized on March 1, 2021. Mike Bahn will join the ACT leadership team as vice president of the Tekgard Division. Both companies will maintain all employees and seek to expand their teams as they continue to experience growth.

Click to learn more about Tekgard

Advanced Cooling Technologies Selected as Key Thermal Management Supplier for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

February 19^th 2020: Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. has been awarded a contract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for engineering development and flight hardware manufacturing of Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs) and an Embedded Warm Radiator Panel, which will fly as part of the Coronagraph Instrument, which is an instrument on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. ACT will be the prime thermal management supplier for the Electronics Heat Transport Subsystem (EHTS); the scope of work includes design, fabrication and qualification of several external CCHPs and an aluminum-honeycomb embedded CCHP radiator panel. All deliverables will be provided to JPL by March 2022.

WFIRST rendering released by NASA in May 2020

This project is particularly exciting due to the legacy it carries; the Roman Space Telescope is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, who paved the way for space telescopes focused on the broader universe. She was instrumental (pun intended) in the advocacy and development of new tools that would allow scientists to study the broader universe from space. According to NASA the Roman Telescope will achieve some remarkable feats, including:

• • The ability to investigate long-standing astronomical mysteries, such as the force behind the universe’s expansion by studying dark energy
  • Capabilities to reveal thousands of worlds that are similar to planets in our solar system, by utilizing gravitational effects called microlensing

The Roman Telescope will feature a Wide Field Instrument and Coronagraph Instrument. The Wide Field Instrument will have a field of view that is 100 times greater than the Hubble infrared instrument, allowing it to capture more of the sky with less observing time. The Coronagraph Instrument will perform high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of individual nearby exoplanets.

image credit: NASA

As the primary thermal management solutions provider, ACT will leverage its extensive aerospace engineering and aluminum-ammonia heat pipe expertise to qualify and deliver flight article CCHPs and the embedded CCHP radiator. ACT’s ammonia CCHPs have recently exceeded 50 million on-orbit hours and have never recorded an on-orbit failure. The existing robust manufacturing and quality control will be heavily leveraged during the execution of this contract.

The contract has generated significant excitement at ACT- “We’re thrilled anytime we have the opportunity to work with NASA JPL, but there is added excitement to support a program as important as the Roman Space Telescope” said Bryan Muzyka, Manager, Sales & Marketing. “This will give ACT and our supply chain the opportunity to innovate and be part of a truly special project” added John Hartenstine, Vice President of Operations at ACT.

 ^{Information related to the Roman Space Telescope was found at https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope}

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet our customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle since 2003. We serve our customers’ thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse Markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling and Calibration Equipment. With the expertise of an industry leader and the agility of a small company, we specialize in providing performance and cost-optimized thermal management technologies and solutions that meet the unique needs of each customer.

Learn more about ACT’s spacecraft thermal control products.

ACT adds new product for control cabinet cooling: Vapor Compression Air Conditioners

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has introduced a series of high-performance Air Conditioners to their expanded Sealed Enclosure Cooler Product Line. ACT has been providing an industry-leading combination of price and performance for above-ambient and low-power sub-ambient enclosure cooling applications for several years. The new Vapor Compression Cooler (VCC) Air Conditioners fills a gap for high power, sub-ambient cooling. The VCC series features several characteristics desired by the automation, utility, communications, and power electronics industries:

• High Power Capacity: 1,000 to 5,000 Watts models
• IP 55 Seal for harsh environment applications
• Competitive price points, starting at $1,150
• Inventoried Parts; Lead Times < 2 weeks

Electronics’ cabinets are becoming increasingly more challenging to cool, with more and more electronics packaged inside cabinets; all of which must remain sealed from dust and water and safely operate in hot environments. This product expansion allows ACT’s Enclosure Cooler product line to fulfill a wide range of the industry demand.

This latest product expansion is another demonstration of ACT’s ability to innovate in order to meet its customers’ technical needs. “Customers continuously requested higher capacity air conditioners and we made the strategic decision to invest in the VCC product series” Scott Garner, Vice President of ACT’s Industrial Products Group stated. “With this product expansion, we now have design options for the vast majority of power and environmental requirements that our customers need,” added Garner.

The new VCC product line is available for online purchasing through ACT’s e-commerce platform and is backed by ACT’s market-leading customer care and engineering expertise; allowing customers to quickly select, receive, and integrate enclosure coolers with no performance or reliability concerns. “All of our Enclosure Cooler products are designed with our customers in mind. We pride ourselves on providing a broad range of highly effective products,” added Devin Pellicone, Lead Engineer.

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company, providing design and manufacturing services to meet customers’ needs across all points of the product lifecycle. ACT provides thermal management and energy recovery needs in diverse markets including Defense, Aerospace, Electronics, HVAC, Medical, Enclosure Cooling, and Calibration Equipment.

Contact ACT for any questions ACT’s New VCC Series

Enclosure Cooler Selection Tool

LEARN MORE about the VCC Air Conditioner Series

ACT’s CCHPs Reach 50 Million Hours of Space Flight Operation

Lancaster, PA: Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced that their Aluminum-Ammonia Constant Conductance Heat Pipe (CCHP) products have reached 50 Million Hours of Space Flight Operation. Numerous satellites carrying ACT hardware have launched from locations across the globe since 2009, bringing ACT’s total flight heritage for Aluminum-Ammonia CCHPs to:

• Over 50 Million Hours of Operation
• 1,000+ Heat Pipes in Orbit
• Zero Failures

Satellite integrators value quality and reliability in products and suppliers. 50 million hours of on-orbit heritage without failure is a reminder that ACT is a dependable manufacturer with a robust, repeatable fabrication process. The extensive investment in the company’s infrastructure and quality control over the years has resulted in the achievement of strong CCHP process qualification, as well as the qualification of numerous geometric designs.   In an industry where risk and schedule are critically important, having a trustworthy thermal management partner that does not require lengthy qualification programs provides significant program value.

CCHP’s must pass extensive testing to be spaceflight ready. This requires robust processes and a dedicated team of employees that each play an important role in the design, manufacturing, and testing of CCHPs. Leveraging an agile business model, ACT continues to adapt and expand to accommodate the rapid growth in the Space industry, both nationally and internationally, in order to meet the increased need for advanced cooling solutions.

“Satellites are beginning to increasingly carry out processing onboard that was accomplished terrestrially in years past. The added computing power that is now being hosted on satellites creates additional waste heat, which needs to be dissipated. Aerospace engineers are continuing to push the capabilities of new satellite design, and our job is to continue innovating alongside them to manage the thermal loads and ultimately to advance the technology.” explained Jared Montgomery, ACT’s Lead Engineer and Program Manager for CCHP Production.

As the space industry continues to evolve, the ACT team is quickly able to increase its ability to provide the quality spaceflight hardware that customers have come to expect from the company. ACT has indicated that its ability to quickly scale is the result of the high number of excellent local engineering and technical schools combined with a robust internal training program, extensive investments in capital equipment, and the ability to swiftly add to the manufacturing footprint.

“Our CCHP production line continues to increase in capacity; we’ve become much more efficient through the continuous improvement investments made over the last three years. This allows us to meet tight schedules and deliver the highest quality, flight-worthy parts to both new customers and long-term partners” continued Jared Montgomery, ACT’s Lead Engineer and Program Manager for CCHP Production.

ACT’s first CCHP shipment in 2020 to Korea

Jared stated that one of the most rewarding parts of the CCHP product line is “The opportunity to see a project through to launch. We (ACT) get to take customers’ ideas and partner with them to craft hardware that is specific to their projects and goals. Knowing that hardware will then launch into space and usually into orbit is rewarding to our entire team.”

ACT not only has a proven manufacturing team but also dedicated teams responsible for both new product development & qualification programs and advanced Research and Development (R&D) projects for the space industry.  The R&D team has partnered with NASA on numerous SBIR programs to advance future thermal technology for space. A few recent examples include:

• NASA Phase IIE/III SBIR, NASA VIPER Rover Thermal Management
• NASA Phase II SBIR, Autonomous Melting Probe for Icy Planets Exploration
• NASA Phase I SBIR, “Dark” Photovoltaic Cells for Space Power Generation
• NASA Phase I SBIR, Thermal Management System for Lunar Ice Miners

“At ACT, we believe in the possibilities and security that can be provided to all of us through advanced space systems; we would like to thank our satellite industry partners for their support and continued trust in our manufacturing, quality, and engineering capabilities,” said Bryan Muzyka, ACT’s Manager, Sales & Marketing. “We value these partnerships, and look forward to the innovations yet to come.”

Learn more about ACT’s custom thermal solutions for Spacecraft here.

AHR EXPO 2021 INNOVATION AWARD- ACT WINS GREEN BUILDING CATEGORY

GREEN BUILDING

Winner: Advanced Cooling Technologies – Pump-Assisted Split Loop Energy Recovery Heat Exchanger

Advanced Cooling Technologies’ Industrial Products Group prepares to deliver Pump-Assisted Split Loop Energy Recovery Heat Exchanger

Innovation: Advanced Cooling Technologies’ Pump Assisted AAHX recovers energy from either the exhaust or supply air stream during all seasons, allowing AHUs to consume less
energy. It works by combining traditional air-to-air heat pipe technology with pumped two-phase systems that take advantage of both operational modes. In passive mode, which activates when the warmer air stream is physically below the cooler air stream, the heat exchanger operates as a heat pipe with no electrical input required. When the seasons’ change and the relative temperature of the two air streams are reversed, a small pump is utilized to maintain the transfer of energy. Since the method of heat transfer inside of the heat exchanger utilizes the latent heat of the working fluid, the amount of flow rate required to transfer larger amounts of energy is a fraction of an equivalent glycol loop. The combination of passive operation for at least half of the year and very minimal energy consumption during active operation for the other half of the year enables such high overall energy recovery from this product.

The heat exchanger is compatible with large systems or distance. Additionally, optional active control valves and pump controls allow the heat exchanger to provide relatively precise temperature control and defrost capabilities without the need for volume inefficient bypass. This innovation solves some of the HVAC’s industry’s issues such as: allowing for clean air with no cross-air contamination; it is highly-efficient and has high-performance ratings using two-phase heat transfer, and it has added reliability
through redundancy and fluid selection. It also removes the restrictions on hardware placement that current system designers struggle with, therefore also removing the need to trade-off system packaging and energy recovery. This innovation will free up designers to develop new system layouts for better building air distribution and return, as well as allow for the optimization of airflow in their application without having to sacrifice energy efficiency.

Read the full article here.

Advanced Cooling Technologies – Pump-Assisted Split Loop Energy Recovery Heat Exchanger

Advancing Thermal Management in Space: ACT receives 7 NASA SBIR Awards

Lancaster, PA: Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is pleased to announce the awards of seven NASA R&D programs thus far in 2020:

• NASA Phase II SBIR, Variable Conductance Cold Plate for Spatial and Temporal Temperature Uniformity
• NASA Phase II SBIR, Autonomous Melting Probe for Icy Planets Exploration
• NASA Phase I SBIR, Thermal Management System for Lunar Ice Miners
• NASA Phase I SBIR, “Dark” Photovoltaic Cells for Space Power Generation
• NASA Phase I SBIR, 3D Printed Loop Heat Pipe (LHP)
• NASA Phase I SBIR, Passive Thermal Control Valves for Loop Heat Pipes and Pumped Systems
• NASA Phase IIE/III SBIR, NASA VIPER Rover Thermal Management

ACT has a history of leveraging R&D programs into emerging thermal technologies, and currently has five patents related to Spacecraft Thermal Control, with another six related patents pending. ACT’s Product Development group has been hard at work this year transitioning Space Copper Water Heat Pipes (SCWHPs), one of the most promising NASA collaborations of 2017, to full-scale production.

NASA Phase II SBIR, Variable Conductance Cold Plate for Spatial and Temporal Temperature Uniformity

ACT’s Variable Conductance Cold Plate uses a vapor chamber, VCHPs, and a pumped two-phase system to provide very uniform temperatures on the cold plate surface.

Many of NASA’s instruments are extremely sensitive to temperature variations when making measurements, both spatially over different components of the instruments, as well as temporally when making long observations.

ACT will work with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to develop the Variable Conductance Cold Plate.

ACT’s Thermal Management System for Europa/Enceladus uses GPHS Modules combined with a Pumped Two Phase (P2P) system and Variable Conductance Cold Plates (VCHPs) to melt through the ice layer.

NASA Phase II SBIR, Autonomous Melting Probe for Icy Planets Exploration

NASA is interested in exploring the possibility of life on the Ocean Worlds of Europa and Enceladus.  This requires a reliable and autonomous ice penetration vehicle that can melt through the ~30km (18 mile) thick ice crust on Europa to determine if there is life in the oceans.

ACT will work with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to develop the thermal management architecture for this nuclear-powered ice-melting probe.

NASA Phase I SBIR, Thermal Management System for Lunar Ice Miners

ACT’s Thermal Management System for Lunar Ice Miners vaporizes ice trapped in the lunar soil and condenses it in a reservoir for use by Lunar astronauts.

A large amount of ice water was identified at the polar regions on the Moon and is important for future manned missions to the Moon. Extracting this water ice from within the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSR) requires high thermal energy input and inversely, capturing this water vapor requires significant cooling capacity. It is critical to develop a dedicated thermal management system (TMS) for Lunar ice mining application.  The system integrates multiple thermal components (waste heat-based thermal corer, passive cooled cold trap container etc.) that can significantly reduce the mass, volume and electricity usage while maximizing ice extraction/collection rates.

ACT has teamed up with Honeybee Robotics (HBR) to develop a thermal management system for Lunar ice miners that uses the waste heat of GPHSs for heating and uses the Lunar environment as the heat sink for cooling.

Watch this video for behind the scenes footage!

NASA Phase I SBIR, “Dark” Photovoltaic Cells for Space Power Generation

ACT’s “Dark” photovoltaic cells can produce power during the Lunar Night, as well as on Near-Sun and Deep-Space missions.

This program will develop a novel “dark” photovoltaic cell that can generate electricity when there is no sunlight.  The proposed “dark” PV technology exploits the thermo-radiative (TR) cell, which is also made of semiconductor p-n junctions and can be viewed as a reversed PV cell, as a new way to efficiently convert heat to electricity when radiatively coupled to a low temperature heat sink. The immediate NASA application is to generate electrical power during the lunar night using the waste heat from the radiators of lunar landers and rovers. Another potential application is to use TR cell as an alternative technology for high-temperature solar cell, which could be helpful for near-Sun missions (e.g., near Mercury orbit), since the performance of TR cell increases rapidly with temperature.

ACT is partnering with Lurie Nanofabrication Facility of Univ. of Michigan to fabricate the cells used in this project.

NASA Phase I SBIR, 3D Printed LHP

ACT’s 3D printed LHPs are significantly less expensive to manufacture than convention LHPs, making them very attractive for SmallSats and CubeSats.

Loop heat pipes (LHPs) are a commonly utilized device for spacecraft thermal control due to high efficiency and flexibility (ability to integrate with deployable radiator, thermal control valve, etc.).  However, they are currently too costly to manufacture to make them viable for most cost-sensitive applications such as CubeSats and SmallSats.  In this program, ACT will work to improve the wick properties in order to apply this emerging technology to higher power, large satellite applications, which are the current main loop heat pipe market, The current program will further reduce the power size, and increase the porosity.

NASA Phase I SBIR, Passive Thermal Control Valves for Loop Heat Pipes and Pumped Systems

The TCVs developed in the new program can be used in LHPs and Pumped Two-Phase Systems for passive thermal control.

There is a clear need for advanced thermal control solutions that can support extended-duration science payloads on the lunar surface. Since the primary power source for near term Lunar surface science missions is a combination of solar photovoltaic arrays & batteries (note that each watt of power required through the lunar night requires ~5 kg of batteries), a thermal control system that rejects daytime heat efficiently & conserves energy through the night is essential to keep the payloads, batteries and other critical components at suitable temperatures.

ACT will work with NASA to develop passive Thermal Control Valves (TCVs), and test them with a low-cost, 3D-printed Loop Heat Pipe (LHP).

NASA Phase IIE/III SBIR, NASA VIPER Rover Thermal Management

ACT will develop Engineering Demonstration Units for the NASA VIPER rover. Credit: NASA

Future Lunar bases will require water for the astronauts.  ACT has recently been awarded a Phase IIE/III program to develop engineering demonstration units for the NASA VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) rover program, which is scheduled to land on the moon in December, 2022. The VIPER Rover will roam several over several miles, using its four science instruments, including a 1-meter drill, to sample various soil environments looking for water.

ACT will be working with NASA Johnson Space Center.

A Phase IIE/III program is a program developed by NASA to fund further development of technologies developed by NASA Phase II SBIR programs.

These awards will further enhance ACT’s products for Spacecraft Thermal Control, including:

• Thermal Modeling and Design
• Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs)
• Variable Conductance Heat Pipes (VCHPs)
• Space Copper-Water Heat Pipes and High Conductivity (HiK™) plates
• Loops Heat Pipes (LHPs)
• Phase Change Material (PCM) Heat Sinks
• Accumulators for Pumped Loop Systems
• Momentum Driven Vortex Phase Separators

R&D Division Announces 3 Government Contract Awards, showing diverse research interests

Lancaster, PA: Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is announcing three Government contract award wins in one week; two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and one Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program awards add to the more that 15 SBIR grants earned in 2020 by the ACT R&D group. These three contract awards encompass a wide array of research interests across the Research & Development team at ACT.

• Phase I STTR program, “Advanced Durable Textiles for Combat Uniform”
• Phase I SBIR proposal, “Solid Rocket Motors for High Performance Interceptors”
• Phase I SBIR program, “Advanced Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine Piston”

Phase I STTR program, “Advanced Durable Textiles for Combat Uniform”

This proposal was partly based on an earlier ACT Phase I program with the Defense Logistics Agency to control fabric wettability.

Next-generation uniforms must be robust, highly stretchable, breathable, flame retardant, comfortable and superior in moisture management.  In this STTR program, North Carolina State University, Wilson College of Textile (NCSU-WCT) will work with ACT to develop a novel highly stretchable textile.

Current combat uniforms are very robust for sustaining continuous and repeat abrasion, wear and tear. However, they are not as stretchable, breathable and comfortable as knitted fabrics commonly used in sports, undergarment and performance apparels. In contrast, conventional knitted fabrics are more comfortable but not as durable.  The Army is looking for new textiles that are robust, stretchable, breathable, and provide thermal management, including wicking away sweat.  In a conventional material, the material becomes thinner when is it stretched (think of a rubber band).  In contrast, the advanced auxetic textile that ACT and NCSU-WCT will develop will actually become thicker when stretched.

Phase I SBIR proposal, “Solid Rocket Motors for High Performance Interceptors.”

Funded by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), ACT will work with two groups from Penn State, one working with nanoparticle passivation and the Penn State High Pressure Combustion Lab.

The Missile Defense Agency is looking to advance the state-of-the-art technology for interceptor missile in order to achieve superior defensive measures against new super and hypersonic attacks. Specifically, interceptor missiles must gain faster lateral and axial accelerations, greater thrust, and higher total impulse. New state-of-the-art designs must also be adaptable to multiple-pulse operations. Realizing these design goals will be accomplished through precision engineering of the solid rocket motor propellant. The MDA is interested in innovative solid propellant formulations and fabrication techniques that enable highly-loaded grains (HLGs), i.e., packing more solid propellant into a fixed volume, to produce the desired interceptor characteristics.

ACT will synthesize different micro-scale particles to harness their kinetic and thermodynamic benefits that produce the desired macroscale effects on burn rate and thrust. Simultaneously, ACT will apply the new fuel formulations to direct casting and pressing fabrication experiments to generate a new thruster system capable of multiple-pulse operations (Current solid rocket engines burn fully to completion once started).

Phase I SBIR program, “Advanced Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine Piston”

FEA Temp. Analysis of Steel Piston w/o (left) and with (right) Two-Phase Cooling

ACT and the Combustion Physics Laboratory at Wayne State University will develop a two-phase cooled, 3D-printed heavy-duty diesel engine piston, that will operate at surface temperatures of up to 600°C, localized heat fluxes of 20 MW/m², and cylinder pressures of 275 bar. Diesel engine performance is directly proportional to combustion chamber pressures, which correlate with higher thermal loadings on the pistons. Current high-performance diesel engines utilize steel pistons (4140 alloy), which are limited to ~500°C and 200 bar. These pistons are typically cooled by oil jets directed into open galleries within the piston crown. The proposed project will utilize two-phase heat transfer of alkali metals (sodium, potassium, or cesium) in place of oil within sealed galleries.

Innovation is at the core of ACT, and the R&D department continues to lead its product and market diversification effort, shaping the company and solutions we provide to our customers. These three awards won within one week are a credit to the depth of talent and interests found at ACT.

ACT NAMED 12TH FASTEST GROWING COMPANY IN CENTRAL PA BY CPBJ

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) was honored by Central Penn Business Journal in their 2020 Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies as the 12^th Fastest Growing Company in Central Pennsylvania. ACT has made the top 50 list a number of times since the company’s inception in 2003, and is especially thrilled to be named this year. The Company is a leading provider of thermal management solutions for diverse industries including Aerospace, Defense, Energy, HVAC, Medical, and Industrial Automation.

“Our success is built on our employees’ dedication and ingenuity”, said Jon Zuo, President of ACT. Over the years, the Company has invested heavily in developing a highly engaged workforce, through effective recruiting, training, promotion and workplace improvement programs. “Our employees’ response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic is nothing short of inspirational”, Jon Zuo continued. The Company quickly adapted to the heightened personnel health protection requirements and has been effectively meeting its customers’ growing demand for its products and technologies.

ACT is proud to partner with industry leading customers who share its values of innovation, teamwork and customer care. The Company’s strength in solving complex thermal problems and turning innovative designs into cost-effective and reliable manufactured solutions has gained it the trust of numerous long-term partners. This award is received as the Company is completing its 6^th expansion within the BURLE Business Park,  that has increased its footprint to more than 80, 000 ft².

Learn more about ACT and Our Team

HVAC system upgrades at the Illinois State University

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc., a premier designer and manufacturer of pump assisted two-phase heat exchangers, was recently awarded an approximately $500,000 contract from BTU Company, a Chicago, IL area Environmental Control solutions provider, to build eight (8) independent Split-Pump assisted Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for HVAC system upgrades at the Illinois State University.

Split-Pump assisted Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for HVAC system upgrades at the Illinois State University

ISU’s Watterson North & South Towers are two dormitory high-rises on the Normal, IL campus that have old HVAC systems that need to be upgraded, and must be ready for incoming students arriving for Fall semester 2021. An engineer on this project had the bold idea of implementing heat pipe heat exchanger technology to achieve higher HVAC system efficiency through energy recovery via a more passive nature. BTU Company, working with Engineers at the Farnsworth Group and contractors with The PIPCO Companies were instrumental in this process, working with ACT and the university team to provide a superior design and installation plan for this Heat Recovery portion of the overall HVAC package for the ISU campus.

This award builds on ACT’s recent technology success with the Lehigh University STEPS building, which utilizes a pump assisted air-to-air heat exchanger program; however, the Watterson Towers designs have some additional complexities to address.  The Lehigh units were one piece, vertical, over and under designs. The Watterson Towers units will be two independent coils (split system), each 52” x 52” and the coils are placed approximately seven (7) feet apart horizontally and one (1) foot apart vertically.  The heat pipe heat exchangers are placed in each of the air handlers to exchange energy between the incoming air stream and the building exhaust air stream, without contaminating the clean incoming air.  In the summer, the cool air leaving the building is used to pre-cool the incoming outside air such that the active air conditioning load is less.  In the winter, the warm air leaving the building is used to pre-heat the incoming outside air such that the active heating load on the AHU is reduced.

Click here for more information about ACT’s Air-to-Air heat exchangers or call us at 717-295-6061 to set up a learning session with our engineers!

ENERGY RECOVERY FOR MT. RUSHMORE NATIONAL MONUMENT’S VISITOR CENTER

During the renovation of the Mt. Rushmore National Monument’s Visitor Center, an ACT Air-To-Air Heat Exchanger (AAHX) Heat Pipe was selected to provide energy recovery for an existing Air Handler Unit (AHU) by ACT’s regional technical sales representatives, Mechanical Sales South Dakota (MSSD) Inc. The Heat Pipe was chosen by MSSD’s cutting-edge engineering team as the ideal energy recovery method because of the tight mechanical space; the AAHX unit was a perfect fit in the existing ductwork. This addition to the AHU will recover, depending on the season, either the cool or warm air leaving the building to pre-cool or pre-heat the incoming supply air. This allows the unit to provide fresh outside air, not contaminated air that has already circulated within the building, without taking a hit on efficiency or cost!

We look forward to our next visit to the newly upgraded book store, artifact storage rooms, and offices inside of the Visitor center, knowing that ACT Heat Pipes are helping to save them money, reduce strain on the environment, and keep the indoor air clean for a pleasant experience for visitors at Mt. Rushmore!

Windows of the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center located beneath the Grand View Terrace. NPS Photo https://www.nps.gov/moru/planyourvisit/placestogo.htm

HVAC HOME

NASA Phase II Project- Autonomous Melting Probe for Icy Planets Exploration

September 11, 2020

R&D staff at Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. are hard at work on the NASA Phase II project ‘Autonomous Melting Probe for Icy Planets Exploration’

NASA is interested in exploring the possibility of life on the ocean worlds of Europa, Ceres (Jupiter’s moons) and Enceladus (Saturn’s moon). This kind of mission requires a reliable and autonomous ice penetration probe that can melt through the ~30km of ice crust of these moons. ACT’s Research & Development group have taken on this task, noting some particular points of concentration around challenges such as surrounding temperature non-uniformity, possible obstacle encounter during melting and descent as well as temperature and pressure extremes experienced by the instrument.

ACT has already completed a Phase I NASA SBIR program on this topic, demonstrating an early concept:

This summer ACT received funding for the Phase II portion of the program. The Phase II funding will allow ACT to continue to work on an innovative melting probe design, and begin designing, building and testing prototypes. The final prototype needs to be capable of melting the thick icy crust efficiently. It needs to avoid obstacles by changing the direction of motion or even melting and moving laterally to avoid refreezing of the tail, all autonomously.

To enable these capabilities for the probe, the development during the Phase II program will focus on a series of innovative features.  Feature one will be a pumped 2-phase loop that collects waste heat from the electrical convertors to focus it to the front of the probe. A second feature is a vapor chamber at the front that will collect the heat from the pumped 2-phase loop and focus the heat for forward melting. A third and very important feature, consisting of variable conductance walls, will allow lateral melting only as needed to minimize the parasitic energy usage. This feature will passively release the probe when it gets stuck because of tail refreeze. This will allow a change of trajectory or even lateral motion to avoid obstacles.  A fourth feature will consist of water displacement nozzles that will allow steering of the probe during the ice melting. All these features will need to work together, interacting with each other, increasing the probes reliability and avoiding mission show stoppers.  ACT’s team expects preliminary results from this Phase II development by September 2021 and final prototype results by June 2022.

For more technical information on the Phase 1 portion of this project:
 ICES-2020-201: Thermal Concept for Planetary Ice Melting Probe

Lancaster company will help lunar craft keep its cool during deliveries to Moon

LancasterOnline provides a description of ACT’s announcement of our relationship with Astrobotic Technology Inc, providing thermal management services and hardware in support of  Astrobotic’s Peregrine, which is a lander that will be providing payloads to Earth’s moon:

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/lancaster-company-will-help-lunar-craft-keep-its-cool-during-deliveries-to-moon/article

ACT Awarded Production Build of Pumped Two Phase (P2P) Systems for Fairlead Integrated

Lancaster, PA, June 23, 2020

ACT was recently awarded two contracts by Fairlead Integrated, a major supplier to the U.S. Navy, for manufacture and delivery of twenty-five (25) Pumped Two Phase cooling loops. These loops are built and installed into ruggedized cabinets provided by Fairlead. Fairlead and ACT began working together shortly after ACT’s acquisition of Parker Hannifin’s Precision Cooling Business in early 2019. These systems utilize Pumped Two-Phase (P2P) technology which provides thermal performance and packaging benefits to Fairlead and ultimately to the Navy. “ACT is proud to supply these leading-edge thermal systems to our customers which in turn enables them to provide the highest quality and highest reliability power electronics systems to the Navy”, said Scott Garner, Vice President of ACT’s Industrial Products Group.

On previous builds, ACT further developed a brazing process that now yields successful, consistent results on the numerous challenging joints on this assembly. This is one example of continuous improvement and manufacturing efficiency gains ACT has achieved in our P2P products. These are highly complex systems, and ACT will deliver one to two units per month spaced through October of 2021.

In addition to Naval Systems, ACT’s P2P products are implemented in energy and industrial power electronics applications. The customizable technology allows for higher total power, higher localized power, consistent heat distribution and smaller packaging compared to traditional pumped single-phase cooling. In addition, P2P systems leverage di-electric working fluid which adds reliability. ACT works closely with our customers, such as Fairlead, to assure the system is properly designed and long-term performance can be achieved.

Technology Advancements in support of COVID-19 Testing

Lancaster PA, March 30 2020– The continued spread of COVID-19 across the globe is testing the spirits of individuals and companies. During this period of uncertainty, it’s important to ACT that we voice our appreciation for the workers on the frontline of this battle. Thank you to all of the nurses, doctors, scientists and other medical professionals that are both treating the infected and searching for a long-term solution. We also want to recognize key technology advancements that help support the fight against COVID-19.

We came across this well written DW Article outlining how the Virus is being tested, and wanted to share how the work of one of our partners, INHECO, is contributing to the availability of safe and accurate test equipment. As outlined in the DW article, technology such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) devices are used to select and copy DNA in order to search for specific DNA pieces, such as coronavirus. Being able to copy large quantities of DNA in a rapid fashion is essential to this process, and allows scientists to work with exact copies of the genetic material during research and clinical testing.

This replication process in PCR is almost universally reliant upon thermal cycling, which requires a rapid response from the thermal management system, to quickly keep the temperature uniform for all cells across the entire unit, through the heating and cooling cycles.

One of the most responsive PCR-Cyclers available is INHECO’s On Deck Thermocycler, or ODTC®, which uses patented Vapor Chamber Mount (VCM®) Technology*. These thermal cyclers benefit from enhanced heat transfer, which is achieved through a two-phase solution. The rapid transient response of the vapor chamber allows for precise temperature uniformity required for these high-end biomedical applications. In particular, with the mentioned technology, it is possible to automate NGS workflows to analyze viral genomes of infected patients with previously unachievable speed, quality and quantity. This enables us to understand the mutation rate of this new virus and how many strains exist.  It also allows us to estimate how dangerous the virus is today and may be in the future.  The achievements we can reach when innovative companies work together are amazing.

This collaboration between engineering and medical technology professionals is just one example of the global teamwork needed in order to overcome the coronavirus. We expect to see a lot of new innovations during this trying period, and we appreciate other companies’ developments to speed up the process of building ventilators and manufacturing respirators!

*2018 Long-Term Agreement announcement to supply the elaborate vapor chamber used in this specific type of PCR: INHECO Partners with ACT for 

VCM Technology

We at ACT remain proud of our partnership with INHECO and proud of what INHECO and other medical companies across the globe are doing to advance this technology to enable this critical testing to take place. We are committed to continue our manufacturing operations in accordance with local requirements, in order to support our partners during this challenging time.

ACT Awarded SBIR Phase II funding for MIDS JTRS Thermal Management System

MIDS JTRS Source: Naval-Technology.com

Lancaster, PA, February 11 2020 – The Navy has funded Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) for Phase II of the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, “Advanced Cooling Options for Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Terminals”.  Under this SBIR, ACT is developing an innovative thermal management system for MIDS JTRS terminals that integrates multiple technologies to significantly increase cooling performance while maintaining size, weight, and power (SWaP) of the system. These MIDS JTRS cooling enhancements potentially afford a significant reduction in terminal Total Ownership Cost (TOC) as the US Navy seeks to increase terminal reliability and provide more capabilities to the fleet.

In the Phase I project, ACT worked closely with the MIDS manufacturers (BAE Systems, Rockwell Collins, ViaSat) to perform a detailed analysis evaluating thermal bottlenecks of MIDS JTRS terminals. ACT then assessed the impact of implementing a large number of potential thermal enhancement technologies at each thermal path, as well as on the overall system. To demonstrate the proposed improvements experimentally, a prototype Hi-K (heat pipe) card frame was fabricated and tested, alongside ICE-Lok^TM (wedge lock) technology. The Phase II portion will focus on continued prototyping, SWaP analysis and Hi-K card frame validation/qualification efforts with MIDS Program Office (MPO) and MIDS manufacturers to enable a “smooth transition” into MIDS Program of Record.

According to Dr. Srujan Rokkam, the Lead Engineer for the project “We are excited to continue the thermal technologies research and development for MIDS. Successful demonstration of ACT’s Hi-K plates in a relevant environment would improve current MIDS terminal reliability and performance. We look forward to working with the MPO and MIDS prime manufactures to realize these common goals”.

Technology Diversification through R&D contract wins

Technology Diversification through R&D contract wins

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – January 13, 2020. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it is continuing its rapid technology diversification through multiple R&D contract wins.  In 2019 and early 2020 ACT was awarded over 15 new contracts, totaling more than 5 million dollars, through government-funded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) and Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) programs.  These contracts were awarded from several different government agencies, including DOE, DOD (Air Force, Navy, Defense Logistics Agency), NASA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  According to Dr. Richard Bonner, Vice President of R&D at ACT, “These awards demonstrate ACT’s commitment to satisfying the future thermal needs of our customers through innovation.  We are also thankful that our many sponsors throughout the government agencies continue to see the value in pursuing these high risk, high reward research and development programs.”   More information on ACT’s R&D can be found at https://www.1-act.com/innovations/, and ACT’s technical papers https://www.1-act.com/resources/tech-papers/.

Notable examples of recent awards include:

• NASA MIRO 3D Manufacturing.  The NASA MIRO program is designed to increase the participation of minorities and women in STEM activities. During the program, ACT will work with the University of D.C. on 3D printed devices, while mentoring and hiring U. of D.C. students.
• Electrically Isolated Hybrid Two-Phase Cooling System (DOE SBIR)
• Large Eddy Simulation (LES) Flow Solver Suitable for Modeling Conjugate Heat Transfer (Navy STTR)
• Advanced Cooling Options for MIDS Terminals (Navy SBIR)
• Advanced Hot Reservoir Variable Conductance Heat Pipes (VCHPs) for Planetary Landers (NASA STTR)
• Recovery of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) from NdFeB Magnet Powders (DOD Defense Logistics Agency)
• Flexible Coal Power Plant Operation with Thermal Energy Storage (DOE BAA)
• A Novel Process Modeling Framework for Linear Friction Welding (Air Force SBIR)

This year (2020), ACT has continued to expand its R&D into new areas such as:

• Advanced Computational Modeling (https://www.1-act.com/innovations/advanced-modeling/)
• Combustion and Nanoparticle Enhanced Fuels (https://www.1-act.com/stabilized-nanofluids-for-enhanced-combustion-energy/)
• Pumped Two Phase Cooling (https://www.1-act.com/innovations/advanced-pumped-two-phase-cooling/)
• Thermal Storage (https://www.1-act.com/case-studies/super-cool-satellite-thermal-control-system/)

Many of ACT’s R&D programs are in collaboration with industrial and academic partners.  Some of the academic partners in the past year include: Case Western Reserve University, Lehigh University, Texas A&M, University of D.C, University of New Haven, and The University of Southern California.

In 2011, ACT was awarded a Tibbets award from the Small Business Administration (SBA).  SBA presents the awards nationally to small companies and individuals that have advanced technical innovation and economic growth through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.  “Many of ACT’s products were initially developed on SBIR and STTR programs.  Copper-Water Heat Pipes for spacecraft thermal control (https://www.1-act.com/case-studies/copperwater-heat-pipes-and-hik-plates-for-spacecraft-applications/) were originally developed on a NASA Marshall Phase II SBIR, while ICE-Lok™ (https://www.1-act.com/products/ice-lok-thermally-enhanced-wedgelock/) an enhanced Wedgelock, was developed on an Air Force SBIR.” said Dr. William Anderson, Chief Engineer for R&D at ACT.  “We continue to commercialize SBIR research, recently expanding our two-phase cooling product line (https://www.1-act.com/products/pumped-two-phase-cooling-solutions/) which was originally funded by an NSF SBIR.  www.sbir.gov has ranked ACT in the 95^th percentile for commercializing SBIR/STTR programs.”

For more information about these emerging technologies, visit our website (https://www.1-act.com/innovations/)

About ACT

ACT is a developer and manufacturer of advanced thermal management solutions for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Defense, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems. ACT’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility measures more than 65,000 square feet and is certified to ISO9001 and AS9100 quality standards. For more information, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

CONTINUING OUR COMMITMENT TO SUPERIOR QUALITY STANDARDS

Continuing our commitment to superior quality standards with the completion of ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D re-certifications

Lancaster, PA, December 12, 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. announced today that it has successfully passed a rigorous surveillance audit for re-certification for ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D.  The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by accredited registrar Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets.  This re-certification ensures ACT is compliant to the most current industry QMS standards.

ACT has undergone three facility expansions since 2003, resulting in a total footprint of 67,000 sq. ft. These expansions accommodate ACT’s continued growth in various industries including aerospace, defense, power electronics, energy recovery HVAC and electronic enclosures.

Darrell Beck, ACT’s Quality Manager, successfully led ACT through this quality audit, as he has in the past. “ACT’s customers demand strict quality standards, and we take those demands very seriously.  Our re-certification for AS9100 and ISO9001 validates ACT’s commitment to quality and customer service. We’re looking forward to another year of continuing our commitment to elite quality standards!”

ACT’s Quality certifications can be found at: https://www.1-act.com/act-quality/

ACT’s Quality Team- Left to Right- Joel Crawmer, Darrell Beck, Chris Amoling, Heather Robison and Wanda Santos

 About ACT

ACT specializes in engineered solutions utilizing advanced thermal technology, and the development and manufacture of custom thermal products. ACT designs and manufactures HiK™ plates, heat pipes, PCM heat sinks, cold plates, pumped single phase loops, pumped two phase products, and custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems for customers in diverse markets; including Aerospace, Military, Power Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com

ACT Provides Energy Saving Products to Lehigh University

Steps Building at Lehigh University

Lancaster, PA, October 21 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today the signing of a production contract with Energy Transfer Solutions, LLC (ETS), of Kennett Square, PA, to manufacture and install multiple, pump assisted air-to-air heat pipe heat exchangers (AAHX) for the STEPS Building on the Lehigh University Campus in Bethlehem, PA. ACT’s pump-assisted AAHXs offer all-season energy recovery for the building’s HVAC system at a higher reliability and lower maintenance cost than competing technologies.

Integrating energy recovery technologies in the HVAC systems for large buildings such as Hospitals, Universities, and Business Parks is becoming an increasingly common practice. In this case, the expected savings in energy cost from using ACT’s energy recovery products is over $150,000 per year.

Heat pipe heat exchangers provide quick payback and significant annual cost savings. In many cases, these systems can pay for themselves in 2-3 years and operate for 10+ years with minimal operating and maintenance costs.

About ACT
ACT is a developer and manufacturer of advanced thermal management solutions for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Defense, Temperature Calibration, Medical Devices, and Energy Recovery Systems. ACT’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility measures more than 80,000 square feet and is certified to ISO9001 and AS9100 quality standards. For more information, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Learn more about ACT’s Pump Assisted Split Loop Air-to-Air Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers

ACT’s Durable, Sealed Enclosure Coolers: Delivered for Operation at Wastewater Facility

Lancaster, PA, October 11 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has recently delivered a large number of sealed enclosure coolers to a wastewater facility in Texas. This shipment consisted of two (2) product part numbers, HSC-45 and HSC-68, from ACT’s Enclosure Cooling Product Line. Both part numbers were selected for their NEMA 4X (corrosion resistance) rating, superior thermal performances and compatible packaging form factors.

ACT has been providing sealed enclosure coolers for multiple industries since 2016. The product line spans from traditional heat sink coolers (HSC) to compact heat pipe coolers (HPC) to sub-ambient thermoelectric coolers (TEC). Wastewater plants have become a very large user of NEMA rated enclosure coolers due to the environmental protection and efficient cooling provided; as such, the HSC and HPC coolers are strong fits for these types of applications that do not require sub-ambient internal cabinet temperatures.

In addition to the wastewater industry, ACT has increased production of their enclosure cooler product line to service global customers in need of dust and water-sealed electronics cabinets. Other applications using these coolers include partially or fully automated factories, recreational activities (golf courses, amusement parks, etc.) and outdoor communication equipment.

About ACT
ACT is a developer and manufacturer of advanced thermal management solutions for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Defense, Temperature Calibration, Medical devices, and Energy Recovery Systems. ACT’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility measures more than 65,000 square feet and is certified to ISO9001 and AS9100 quality standards. For more information, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Advanced Cooling Technologies Successfully Delivers New Pumped Two Phase (P2P) Solutions

Lancaster, PA, September 3, 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), a leading provider of advanced thermal solutions, recently made its first delivery of

Pumped Two-Phase Diagram

Pumped Two Phase (P2P) field units to legacy customers of Parker Hannifin Corporation’s Precision Cooling Business (PCB).  ACT acquired Parker PCB in mid-January.

“…Color me impressed,” said a long time PCB customer, now fully integrated with ACT. “So far ACT is batting 1000!”

ACT, established in 2003, has been providing P2P solutions for years, but the acquisition of PCB allows the company to provide larger scale solutions from an already established product line.

“The ACT and Parker teams worked well together to effectively execute the product line transition in a short time frame,” said ACT Vice President of Operations and Quality, John Hartenstine.  “Our team has been able to integrate PCB’s equipment and manufacturing knowledge into our current process with great success, positioning us well to meet the market demand for Pumped Two Phase systems.”

ACT recently announced the addition of 4,500 square feet to its facility, enabling the company to meet increased demand for several product lines, including from the recently acquired PCB.  The expansion is expected to be completed in Fall 2019.

About ACT
ACT specializes in engineered solutions utilizing advanced thermal technology, and the development and manufacture of custom thermal products. ACT designs and manufactures HiK™ plates, heat pipes, PCM heat sinks, cold plates, pumped single-phase loops, pumped two-phase products, and custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems for customers in diverse markets; including Aerospace, Military, Power Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.  For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Advanced Cooling Technologies Expands Facility, Manufacturing Area

Lancaster, PA, July 16, 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), a leading provider of advanced thermal solutions, announced today that it is expanding its facilities.  The addition of 4,500 sq. ft. of space brings ACT’s facilities to 62,000 sq. ft.  This will enable the company to meet increased demand within its Product Development Group and Manufacturing.  This includes Constant Conductance Heat Pipe and Copper-Water Heat Pipe Assembly production lines, as well as products from the recently acquired Parker Hannifin Corporation Precision Cooling Business.

“The decision to expand was made to meet the strong growth within our Defense/Aerospace and Industrial Products markets” said John Hartenstine, Vice President, Operations and Quality Assurance. “We are also using this opportunity to restructure the physical layout of our facility to improve our overall efficiency and provide a better experience to our customers.”

Construction plans are underway, and ACT expects the space to be fully operational by the end of Fall 2019.

About ACT

ACT specializes in engineered solutions utilizing advanced thermal technology, and the development and manufacture of custom thermal products. ACT designs and manufactures HiK™ plates, heat pipes, PCM heat sinks, cold plates, pumped single phase loops, pumped two phase products, and custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems for customers in diverse markets; including Aerospace, Military, Power Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.  For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Brunish
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Brunish@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0608

Advanced Cooling Technologies Aluminum-Ammonia Heat Pipe Space Flight Heritage

Lancaster, PA, June 24, 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that their CCHP products have reached 35 Million Hours of Space Flight Operation. Numerous satellites carrying ACT hardware have launched over the past two (2) years, bringing ACT’s total flight heritage for Aluminum-Ammonia CCHPs to:

• 35 Million Hours of Operation
• 700+ Heat Pipes in Orbit
• Zero Failures

“Our CCHP production line has been operating efficiently, allowing us to meet tight schedules and deliver high quality, flight-worthy parts to our customer base” stated Jared Montgomery, ACT’s Lead Engineer and Program Manager for CCHP Production.

“ACT would like to thank our satellite industry partners for their support and continued trust in our manufacturing, quality, and engineering capabilities,” said Bryan Muzyka, ACT Manager, Sales & Marketing. “We value these partnerships, and look forward to years of operational success and collaborating on future hardware builds.”

A live CCHP space flight hours clock is available on ACT’s website.  ACT celebrated 25 Million Hours of Operation in June of 2018.

About ACT

ACT specializes in engineered solutions utilizing advanced thermal technology, and the development and manufacture of custom thermal products. ACT designs and manufactures HiK™ plates, heat pipes, PCM heat sinks, cold plates, pumped single-phase loops, pumped two-phase products, and custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems for customers in diverse markets; including Aerospace, Military, Power Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.  For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Learn more about ACT’s custom thermal solutions for Aerospace here.

Advanced Cooling Technologies: Global Reach, Local Roots

ACT”s Advanced Cool Runnings Team at the 2019 YWCA Race Against Racism.

Lancaster, PA, May 21, 2019 –  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), based in Lancaster County, is an internationally known advanced thermal technology company that has not forgotten its Central PA roots.  Most recently, the organization sponsored a team to run in the YWCA Race Against Racism and volunteered together at the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank.

At the YWCA Race Against Racism, held Saturday, April 27^th in downtown Lancaster, ACT’s “Advanced Cool Runnings” team took home the award for Largest Team from a Large Business (over 100 employees), with 45 participants.  In addition, three employees finished in the top ten of their age division. Andy Lutz (20:41) – 5th place in age group, Kristen Frawley (25:12) – 8th place in age group, Richard Bonner (22:06) – 9th place in an age group. ACT and its employees enjoy supporting this annual event that raises money to support the Lancaster YWCA’s local Social Justice programs.

Later that same week, ACT practiced team-building while supporting the local community, sending a large group to volunteer at the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. 20 employees visited the facility in Harrisburg, and together they helped pack 1,285 bags over the course of two hours.  This food bank services all of South Central PA and needs volunteers for various shifts Monday-Friday.

ACT packed more than 1,200 bags of apples at a recent volunteer outing at the Central PA Food Bank.

“These events were organized by employee-run committees who take great pride in being involved with our local community,” said Diane Baldassarre, VP of Administration.  “Despite being a company that serves customers internationally, our employees and our families and friends live in Central PA, and we want to do whatever we can to give back.”

ACT invests in activities designed to influence positive change within our community and our employees. In August 2017, ACT donated the “Thermal Zone” to Lancaster Science Factory – a new heat transfer exhibit featuring three interactive stations to demonstrate each type of heat transfer: Convection, Conduction, and Radiation. ACT employees have continued partnership with the Science Factory, sending a group last Fall to assist in readying space during their expansion period, and servicing the exhibit for its new placement in the enlarged facility. Read about the LSF expansion.

About ACT

ACT specializes in engineered solutions utilizing advanced thermal technology, and the development and manufacture of custom thermal products. ACT designs and manufactures HiK™ plates, heat pipes, PCM heat sinks, cold plates, pumped single-phase loops, pumped two-phase products, and custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems for customers in diverse markets; including Aerospace, Military, Power Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.  For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

ACT Recertified for ISO and AS9100 Quality Standards

Lancaster, PA, February 4, 2019 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. announced today that it has successfully passed a rigorous surveillance audit for recertification for ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D.  The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by accredited registrar Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets.  This recertification ensures ACT is compliant to the most current industry QMS standards.

For the past several years, ACT has been expanding its physical footprint to over 60,000 sq ft. with more to come in 2019.  These expansions accommodate ACT’s growth serving varied markets, including aerospace, defense, electronics, and electronic enclosures.

Darrell Beck, ACT’s Quality Manager, successfully led ACT through this and many other quality audits. “ACT’s customers demand strict quality standards, and we take those demands very seriously.  Our recertification for AS9100 and ISO9001 validates ACT’s commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.”

ACT’s current quality certifications can be found at https://www.1-act.com/act-quality/

ACT possesses in-house equipment to ensure quality of our products.

About ACT

ACT specializes in engineered solutions utilizing advanced thermal technology, and the development and manufacture of custom thermal products. ACT designs and manufactures HiK™ plates, heat pipes, PCM heat sinks, cold plates, pumped single phase loops, pumped two phase products, and custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems for customers in diverse markets; including Aerospace, Military, Power Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.  For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Brunish
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Brunish@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0608

ACT Awarded over $6M in R&D Contracts

ACT’s investigation of unique gasification reactor designs: (Left) MFiX-TFM simulation (particle in blue, gas in red), (Right) experimental cold flow validation.

Lancaster, PA October 16, 2018 –  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it is continuing its rapid technology diversification through multiple R&D contract wins.  In 2017 and early 2018, ACT was awarded over 18 new contracts totaling more than 6 million dollars through government-funded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) and Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) programs.  These contracts were awarded from several different government agencies, including DOE, DOD (Air Force, Navy, Defense Health Agency), NASA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

According to Dr. Richard Bonner III, Vice President of R&D at ACT, “These awards demonstrate ACT’s continued diversification into R&D areas such as advanced modeling, desalination, combustion, and our continuing development of unique test rigs.”  More information on ACT’s R&D can be found on ACT’s Innovations page, and ACT’s technical papers.

Notable examples of recent awards include:

• Brackish Water for Condensation Irrigation (USDA)
• Enhanced Dropwise Condensation for Improved Dry Cooling Efficiency (DOE)
• A Novel Process Modeling framework for Linear Friction Welding (Air Force)
• Plasma-Assisted Low-Temperature Combustion and Ignition (DOE)
• Hybrid Heat Pipes for High Heat Flux Applications (NASA)
• Electrically Isolated Hybrid Two-Phase Cooling System (DOE)
• PCM-based Ocean Thermal Energy Harvesting (Navy)
• Solar Thermal Assisted Vacuum Freezing Desalination of Seawater at the Triple Point (DOE)
• Spectrographic Thin Film Measurement Technology for Wafer Process Control (DMEA)
• Loop Thermosyphon Enhanced Solar Collector (DOE EERE)
• Variable View Factor Two-Phase Radiator (NASA)
• Limb Cooling Device to Preserve Ischemic Extremity for Prolonged Field Care (Defense Health Agency)
• Spouted Bed Reactor Designs for Thermal Desorption of Mercury Compounds (DOE)
• Stabilized Particles for Volumetric Energy Density Enhancement of Liquid Fuels (Navy)
• Innovative Technology Development to Enhance Fossil Power System Efficiency (DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory)

This year, ACT has continued to expand its R&D into new areas such as:

• Advanced Computational Modeling
• Desalination
• Combustion and Nanoparticle Enhanced Fuels
• Pumped Two Phase Cooling
• Custom Thermal, Fluid, and Mechanical Systems 
• Advanced Coatings
• Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion 

Many of ACT’s R&D programs are in collaboration with industrial and academic partners.  Some of the academic partners in the past year include: Case Western University, Florida State University, Iowa State University, Lehigh University, University of Maryland, Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), UCLA, University of Texas Austin, and the University of Southern California.

In 2011, ACT was awarded a Tibbets award from the Small Business Administration (SBA).  SBA presents the awards nationally to small companies and individuals that have advanced technical innovation and economic growth through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

“Many of ACT’s products were initially developed on SBIR and STTR programs, including Constant Conductance Heat Pipes, PCM Heat Sinks, and Copper-Water Heat Pipes for spacecraft thermal control,” said Dr. William Anderson, Chief Engineer for R&D at ACT.  “We continue to commercialize SBIR research, most recent with ICE-Lok™, a thermally enhanced wedgelock developed on an Air Force SBIR program.  SBIR.Gov has ranked ACT in the 90^th percentile for commercializing SBIR/STTR programs.”

For more information about these emerging technologies, visit our website.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures PCM heat sinks, cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems, and pumped liquid and two-phase loops for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 60,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellites, and numerous military and commercial applications. ACT’s diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Granted Patent for its Thermally Enhanced ICE-Lok™ Wedgelocks for Embedded Computing Applications

Lancaster, PA August 16, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued  ACT US Patent 10,034,403, “Card Retainer Device.”  The patent acknowledges the unique design of a thermally enhanced wedgelock, a component used to secure a card module to a sidewall in embedded computing systems.

This patent marks ACT’s 15^th patent in company history since its inception in 2003.

Embedded computing systems are used in ruggedized computer assemblies and used in demanding environments such as military and aerospace vehicles.  Adoption of these assemblies has been widespread due to the inherent ease of maintenance and open architecture that encourages upgrades to systems as they become available.  To enable the ever-increasing computational power while maintaining component temperatures, efforts are needed to reduce thermal resistance.

ACT’s Iso-thermal Card Edge clamp, “ICE-Lok™,” is a card retainer device providing the maximum surface area possible for heat transfer from a card module to the chassis while limiting forces applied to the side-wall of the chassis and card through a friction-locking design.  ACT is the only provider of this style of clamp.

According to Mr. Jens Weyant, ACT’s Defense/Aerospace Products Group Manager, “We’ve been supplying our military customers with excellent thermal management solutions for both the conduction cooled cards and the chassis.  A common complaint was the thermal bottle-neck presented by standard COTS card retainers.  A successful SBIR effort resulted in the new ICE-Lok™.  We now offer solutions for all thermal resistances between the chip and ultimate heat sink.  This includes the HiK™ conduction cards, the ICE-Lok, and HiK™ Chassis solutions. We’re excited to begin working with customers to deliver the improved thermal performance they’ve been asking us for.”

ACT’s ICE-Loks™ have been rigorously tested and when used in place of a commercial off the shelf wedgelock can result in a thermal savings of up to 30%

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures PCM heat sinks, cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems, and pumped liquid and two-phase loops for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 60,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellites, and numerous military and commercial applications. ACT’s diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Achieves UL 207 for HVAC Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers

Lancaster, PA August 9, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has received the Notice of Completion and Authorization to Apply the UL Mark to its HVAC heat pipe heat exchanger products.  ACT’s wrap around heat exchangers (WAHX) and air-to-air heat exchangers (AAHX), in both the pipe-to-pipe and split loop thermosyphon configurations, with or without control valves, comply with the applicable requirements of UL 207 – Standard for Refrigerant-Containing Components and Accessories, Nonelectrical.  ACT’s HVAC heat pipe heat exchangers are designed to boost HVAC system performance through enhanced dehumidification, free reheat for neutral air applications, and energy cost savings in building ventilation systems.

This UL Certification is significant because many of the HVAC Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are UL shops; and as such, all of the components used in the assembly of the final product are required to be UL marked.  It is also significant because it demonstrates and quantifies, through a globally recognized third party testing agency, the robustness of ACT’s HVAC products.

Pete Dussinger, a Vice President of ACT, noted, “ACT’s latest UL certification for our HVAC Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger line of products verifies what we have known all along – the quality of our products, the innovative technologies, and the custom solutions that we provide have always exceeded the industry standard.  But now there is an indisputable trust factor that specifiers/customers can count on for delivery of the highest technical quality.”

ACT’s Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers are typically used in HVAC applications.  Wrap around heat exchangers (WAHXs) are typically used in warm, humid locations to enhance dehumidification and/or to provide significant energy savings in neutral air applications.  Air-to-air heat exchangers (AAHXs) are typically used in building ventilation applications to maintain a high level of indoor air quality while conserving a significant amount of energy across all of the seasons.

More information about ACT’s HVAC Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger products, including datasheets, user manuals, and online selection tools, can be found at: www.1-ACT.com/HVAC.

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, LED, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s facility measures more than 60,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality and cost effective thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 295-6121

ACT Awarded $1.5M Funding for DOE Solar-Thermal Desalination Technologies

Lancaster, PA  July 10, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announces that it was selected to receive a $1.5 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to advance solar-thermal desalination technologies, which can reduce the cost and expand the market for creating freshwater from otherwise unusable waters.

ACT’s Solar Desalination Design for DOE

In this project, ACT will work with the University of Maryland to develop a loop thermosyphon solar collection system for efficient, low-cost solar-thermal desalination that does not require fluid to be actively pumped throughout the system. Current solar thermal systems have high costs due to the material, installation, operation, and maintenance requirements of the systems, which also increase the fresh water price from solar desalination.  This project aims to solve this problem by lowering the material and installation cost, thereby eliminating the major need for active system operation and maintenance by the new technology.

According to Dr. Fangyu Cao, PI of this project, “With our strong heritage in heat pipes and loop thermosyphon products, ACT is uniquely qualified to satisfy the needs of solar desalination market. We are very excited to work with SETO and bring our technology to this sector.”

The system will take advantage of nanofluids with higher solar absorptivity to improve the system’s efficiency and simplify the collection and conversion of solar-thermal energy used in desalination processes.  ACT’s two-phase thermosyphon technology will be used to transfer the thermal energy for steam generation passively and effectively, with minimal additional costs after the system is installed.

Dr. William Anderson, Chief Engineer at ACT, said, “We are excited to work with the University of Maryland to extend our desalination expertise into low cost solar desalination systems.”

SETO has selected 14 projects in its Solar Desalination program to reduce the cost of solar-thermal desalination by performing integrated tests on best-in-class, near-commercial desalination systems that produce repeatable results with clear and quantifiable objectives. Electricity costs account for up to half of the operating expenses for today’s desalination operations and require plants to be grid-connected. Using solar-thermal power and low-cost components for integrated designs can enable smaller, more portable systems and expand access to desalination technologies.

ACT’s innovative Research and Development group continues to seek out novel and diverse opportunities in new markets beyond common thermal management applications, including desalination, combustion, advanced coatings, and advanced modeling at multiple scales.  For more information on ACT’s R&D group and their innovations, please visit www.1-act.com/innovations.

About the Solar Energy Technologies Office

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, reliability, and performance of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more at energy.gov/solar-office.

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT’s New Patent Expands Its Spacecraft Thermal Control Solution Offerings

Lancaster, PA June 5, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted ACT US Patent 9,952,000, “Constant Conductance Heat Pipe (CCHP) Assembly for High Heat Flux.” The patent teaches how to increase heat flux capabilities for CCHPs, used commonly to dissipate heat from satellite electronics, by combining them with copper/water heat pipes.  ACT is one of the very few companies that have flight heritage with both aluminum/ammonia CCHPs and copper/water heat pipes.

According to Mr. Jens Weyant, ACT’s Defense/Aerospace Products Group Manager, “For years, we have been supplying our spacecraft customers with CCHPs, which can accept heat fluxes of up to 10-15W/cm².  This has become a serious constraint, as electronic devices continue to increase in power and shrink in size.  By combining CCHPs with copper/water heat pipes, we can now provide products that can handle heat fluxes of more than 50W/cm². Our customers are very excited about this new capability.”

The main feature of the invention is the embedding of copper/water heat pipes in the flanges of aluminum/ammonia CCHPs.  See Figure 1.  This innovation benefits both the aluminum evaporator and the condenser.  In the evaporator, copper-water heat pipes can accept a heat flux up to 50W/cm² or more.  The heat is then spread along the CCHP to a flux that is manageable and on the order of 15W/cm² or less. In the condenser, copper/water heat pipes can be used to transfer heat to/from a remote location as shown in Figure 2.  The copper water heat pipes can also be embedded in the condenser flange, to improve the effective thermal conductivity.

Figure 1: An axial groove CCHP with embedded copper/water heat pipes can accept higher heat fluxes than a conventional CCHP.

Figure 2: Copper/water heat pipes can be embedded in an axial groove CCHP condenser to spread heat, and connect to a remote heat spreader.

ACT’s Spacecraft Products

With trusted expertise in engineering and manufacturing spacecraft thermal control systems, ACT consistently delivers innovative solutions to meet the most demanding spacecraft performance requirements. ACT offers one of the most complete product lines for spacecraft thermal control, including:

• Constant Conductance Heat Pipes
• Variable Conductance Heat Pipes
• Loop Heat Pipes
• Copper Water Heat Pipes
• High Conductivity (HiK™) Plates
• Phase Change Material (PCM) Heat Sinks
• Accumulators for Pumped Fluid Systems
• Cold Plates for Thermal Vacuum Testing (TVAC)

For more information, visit ACT’s Spacecraft Thermal Control Products page, or read our blog post with ACT’s Space Flight Heritage Timeline.

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures PCM heat sinks, cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems, and pumped liquid and two-phase loops for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 60,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellites, and numerous military and commercial applications. ACT’s diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

ACT Introduces ICE-Lok™: Thermally Optimized Wedgelocks for Military Chassis

ICE-Lok™ Thermally Enhanced Wedgelocks (Patent Pending)

Lancaster, PA May 2, 2018 –  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today the launch of its new patented Isothermal Card Edge, ICE-Lok™ wedgelocks.  ICE-Lok™ is designed to enhance the card-to-chassis, through-the-wedgelock heat conduction by adding more contact surfaces between the card and the chassis.  The new wedgelock design offers a 30% reduction in thermal resistance compared to similarly sized COTS wedgelocks.  This has enabled reduction of component temperatures of up to 10°C in some 100W card applications.  ICE-Lok™ wedgelocks have been thoroughly tested for thermal and mechanical stability with repeated insertion/removal testing.  They are designed to meet the dimensional requirements of the VITA specification; and the new friction lock feature ensures that card deformation is avoided.

According to Mr. Jens Weyant, ACT’s Defense/Aerospace Products Group Manager, “For years we have been supplying our military customers with excellent thermal management solutions for both the conduction cooled cards and the chassis frame.  With the new ICE-Lok™ wedgelocks we can now offer solutions to all the thermal bottlenecks in ruggedized chassis, ensuring the electronic devices can operate with maximum performance.  We’re excited to begin working with customers to deliver the improved thermal performance they’ve been asking us for.”

ACT’s R&D and Product Development engineers have been developing the ICE-Lok™ for several years, working with the military and their suppliers to address the critical thermal and mechanical requirements.  The ICE-Lok™ is a wedge-type card retainer, but with the wedge faces cut at compound angles. When actuated, this allows the wedges to move with two degrees of freedom, expanding the card retainer in two, rather than one, directions.  The ICE-Lok™ also uses “L” shaped wedges to make a direct thermal connection between the card and chassis, significantly increasing the contact area between the card, clamp, and chassis.  This approach bypasses the significant wedge-to-wedge thermal resistance in a conventional wedgelock and contacts four faces rather than two as with a conventional wedgelock. ICE-Lok™ can be seamlessly integrated into standard VITA systems, creating longer life and higher reliability for a system’s critical components without costly board or chassis redesign.

For more technical information about ICE-Lok^TM, as well as to access an installation guide, visit our website.  ICE-Lok^TM  wedgelocks are aluminum-based material available in both 3/8” and 1/4” cross sections and are designed to meet the dimensional requirements of the VITA specification. A variety of coatings are also available including: Clear Chem Film, Electroless Nickel, Black Anodized and Teflon Hard Coat.  Please contact us through our website, or by calling 717.295.6061.  The Thermal Experts at ACT are waiting to discuss your embedded computing systems application and help you choose the right ICE-Lok™ wedgelocks for you.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures PCM heat sinks, cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems, and pumped liquid and two-phase loops for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 60,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellites, and numerous military and commercial applications. ACT’s diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

ACT Receives Initial Production Contract from L3 for MUMT-X HiK™ Heat Sinks

Apache helicopter. Credit: military.com

April 4th 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has received a production contract for heat sinks supporting L3 Technologies Data Link products. L3’s data link technology will be integrated into the U.S. Army’s Apache Manned/Unmanned Teaming – eXpanded Capabilities (MUMT-X) helicopter program. The heat sinks will keep critical components operational during periods of harsh environments including altitude, temperature, and dust/fog. The ultimate system provided by L3 will enable communications and data teaming between manned and unmanned aircraft, allowing missions to be executed without risking our war fighters. ACT has been working with L3 to develop a unique embedded heat pipe design (HiK™ plate) conducive to high thermal performance, structural strength and cost-effective manufacturing. The total contract nears $1 Million and is scheduled to begin immediately and run through 2019.

ACT’s Defense and Aerospace Group Manager, Jens Weyant commented, “We’re proud to be a part of L3’s program and excited about the opportunity to provide our service men and women with useful technology. This application follows most industry trends of more power in a smaller package. Our HiK™ plate technology is able to spread this increased heat flux to manageable level and keep critical devices at a safe temperature, translating to higher reliability”.

ACT DefAero Products Group is a leader for thermal technologies to support harsh environment defense activity as well as space thermal control systems. This group has successfully demonstrated 20+ Million Hours of on-orbit heritage with a multitude of products and technologies.

ACT is premiere thermal management solutions provider and is a leader in thermal products and technologies for defense, satellite, power electronics, LED and HVAC/energy recovery applications. We pride ourselves on providing the highest level of service and highest quality products throughout various industries.

More Information on the MUMT-X Program:
https://www.l3t.com/press-release/l3-receives-production-contract-us-army-apache-mumt-x-program
MUMTi Sales Sheet

ACT Contact:
Bryan Muzyka, Sales Manager
(717)-205-0639
Bryan.Muzyka@1-ACT.com

ACT’s New High-Heat-Flux Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs) Triple Performance

Lancaster, PA March 6, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that its new hybrid wick Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs) for spacecraft applications have demonstrated a more than 3x improvement in heat flux capability, compared to current standard products.  Testing of the CCHP, seen in Fig 1., was performed by Lockheed Martin under NASA SBIR-Phase II program at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) with Dr. Jeff Farmer as the technical monitor. The testing showed the ACT’s new Hybrid Wick Technology could transfer a heat flux of at least 50 W/cm², where the testing was terminated. Standard CCHPs performance starts degrading at 15 W/cm², when they begin to exhibit dry out conditions.

Figure 1. ACT High Heat Flux Heat Pipe Based on the Hybrid Wick Technology

According to Dr. Mohammed Ababneh, ACT’s Principal Investigator on this project, “We were pleased to see the results from Lockheed Martin confirm our in-house test results.  We believe the hybrid wick CCHPs will address a need for more demanding spacecraft thermal performance.”

A CCHP transports heat over long distances (up to 10 feet or more) from a heat source to a heat sink with a very small temperature difference. CCHPs have been a proven technology for spacecraft thermal control for more than 40 years and ACT is approaching 25 million hours in orbit for their CCHP product line.

Future spacecraft and instruments developed for space missions will involve highly integrated electronics, such as for CubeSat/SmallSat and high power laser diode arrays (LDAs). This high density electronics packaging leads to substantial improvement in performance per unit mass, volume and power. However, it also requires sophisticated thermal control technology to dissipate the high heat flux generated by these electronics systems.

“With the assistance and support of Jeff Framer, MSFC and Lockheed Martin, we have demonstrated a solution for that need”, concluded Dr. Ababneh.

To learn more visit ACT Spacecraft Thermal Control.

For even more, read our case study on how ACT uses a hybrid wick to increase the allowable evaporator heat flux in Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs) by more than a factor of three.

 ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With an ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625

ACT Recertified for ISO and AS9100 Quality Standards

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – January 18, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. a premier thermal management solutions company, announced today that it has successfully passed a rigorous surveillance audit for upgrade to ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D.  The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by accredited registrar Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets.  This upgrade ensures ACT is compliant to the most current industry QMS standards.

For the past several years, ACT has been expanding its physical footprint to 60,000 sq ft. to accommodate its growth serving varied markets, including aerospace, defense, electronics, and electronic enclosures.

Darrell Beck, ACT’s Quality manager, successfully led ACT through this and many other quality audits. “ACT invests in state of the art equipment and top-notch personnel to ensure the quality standards demanded by our customers.  Successfully passing the AS9100 and ISO9001 upgrade audit validates ACT’s commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.  To highlight ACT’s commitment to quality, the final report contained zero findings, which is an impressive result, especially for a multi-day audit.”

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures PCM heat sinks, cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems, and pumped liquid and two-phase loops for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 60,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT -TEC Thermoelectric Cooler Series Solid State Enclosure Air Conditioning

ACT-TEC Thermoelectric Enclosure Coolers

Lancaster, PA January 8, 2018 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today the launch of its thermoelectric air conditioners for industrial and commercial sealed enclosure cooling applications. This is ACT’s fourth addition to their growing line of industrial and commercial enclosure cooling products.

The ACT-TEC Thermoelectric Enclosure Coolers are compact solid state air conditioners designed to cool the internal enclosure space with highly reliable Peltier cooling.  The Peltier cooling cycle involves no moving parts, compressors, CFC refrigerants or circulating liquid, and is therefore inherently reliable, durable and low noise. The use of high reliability fans in combination with solid state Peltier devices in ACT-TEC products assures long life 24 hours per day seven days a week operation. The ACT-TEC product series are available in two power ranges of 90 Watts and 300 Watts of cooling.

ACT-TEC products can be used in wash-down, spray-down enclosure applications, or mounted directly to outdoor cabinets for flawless year-round operations. Standard stocked units are available in under a week.  Dual mode operation of cooling and heating and corrosion resistant NEMA 4X, 316 stainless steel versions are also available.

Sealed enclosure coolers are used to dissipate heat inside enclosures that house and protect electrical/electronic equipment from harmful environmental elements like salt spray, dust, and airborne chemicals. These enclosures or cabinets are typically rated to a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standard. For example, a NEMA 12 cabinet is for indoor use and protects against drips, dust and falling dirt, while a NEMA 4 cabinet is for outdoor use and must be water tight. Sealed enclosure coolers are required to efficiently transfer heat from the inside space to the outside environment while maintaining the NEMA rated seal.

“Sealed Thermoelectric enclosure coolers are a logical technology extension of the many products that ACT currently manufactures for satellite, defense, medical and HVAC markets”, said Mr. Mark Stevens, Sr. Business Development Manager at ACT, “and they add an active (sub ambient) cooling dimension to ACT’s existing, more passive cooling products such as ACT-Heat Sink and ACT-Heat Pipe Coolers”.

More information about ACT’s Thermoelectric enclosure cooling products, including technical data, selection tool and online ordering, can be found at: www/1-ACT/Enclosure-Cooling

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, heat exchangers, pumped liquid and two-phase loops, and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, LED, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality and cost effective thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Advancing Nuclear Thermal Management and Materials Modeling Technologies

Figure 1. Dual Condenser Variable Conductance Heat Pipe (VCHP) provides backup cooling for a radio-isotope Stirling System

Lancaster, PA November 14, 2017 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), announced that it is continuing to develop technologies supporting the nuclear industry in the areas of thermal management and materials modeling. Through multiple R&D contracts since 2017, ACT has developed numerous solutions for thermal management in high-temperature environments relevant to nuclear fission power generation in space and terrestrial applications. These contracts were awarded from different government agencies including NASA and DOD (Air Force, Navy) through multiple SBIR/STTR/BAA programs. “These projects enable us to develop technologies for the challenging needs of thermal management for nuclear power generation in both conventional reactors as well as advanced reactor concepts for space applications,” says Dr. Calin Tarau, Lead Engineer at ACT who led several development efforts in this portfolio. “We have been actively engaged in several initiatives of NASA and DOE Laboratories to advance these technologies for nuclear applications”.

Notable examples of relevant projects include:

• Advanced Stirling radioisotope generator (ASRG) Backup Cooling System (NASA)
• Long-lived Venus Lander Thermal Management (NASA)
• Lunar Regolith Reactor Thermal Management (NASA)
• High Temperature Alkali Metal Heat Pipes for Space & Planetary Power (NASA)
• Low-cost Radiator for Surface Fission Power (NASA)
• Titanium-Water Heat Pipe for Spacecraft Fission Power (NASA)
• Meshless Peridynamics Framework for Corrosion Fatigue Damage Prediction (Navy)
• Atomistically-informed Chemical Kinetics Modeling for Ablative Materials (Navy)
• Multi-physics tool for predicting fatigue crack propagation using Phase field models (Navy)

Figure 2. High-Temperature Sodium heat pipes for a spacecraft fast fission reactor deliver heat from the core to eight Stirling Engines (Kilopower)

ACT has a rich history of developing several heat pipe-based technologies, as well as advanced material modeling capabilities to address unique thermal management and predictive modeling needs. ACT personnel have contributed to the development of:

• Alkali-metal heat pipes for nuclear applications
• Heat pipe power systems for spacecraft and planetary surface vehicles
• Thermal management of both hot end and cold ends of the heat transfer system
• Thermal control devices
• Variable conductance thermal links and heat pipes
• Material models for microstructural evolution under irradiation
• Physics-based meshless modeling tools for corrosion crack propagation
• Multiphysics modeling tools for materials under extreme conditions
• System-level models for thermal-hydraulics and design evaluation.

According to Dr. Srujan Rokkam, a Lead Engineer with a background in nuclear materials science, “These technologies and past experiences provide us with a unique bag of tricks to tackle the challenges and gaps necessary to be mitigated for design, evaluation, and development of next-generation (Gen IV) of advanced nuclear reactor concepts”. “While ACT’s heat transfer devices can enable unique energy conversion concepts, the material modeling capabilities can be applied to gain predictive insights into the thermo-mechanical response of nuclear materials, as well materials chemistry at multiple interfaces and in radiation environments”. Understanding both thermal hydraulics and material behavior in a nuclear environment provides us with unique capabilities for emerging reactor designs and their development.

ACT is looking forward to the opportunities to further advance and develop the aforementioned technologies for nuclear application, through collaboration with NASA, DOE, national laboratories, universities and commercial industrial partners.

For more information about ACT’s R&D activities, visit:  https://www.1-act.com/innovations/

For more information about ACT’s modeling portfolio, visit: https://www.1-act.com/innovations/advanced-modeling/

Figure 3: Modeling nuclear material response under irradiation, microstructural changes and corrosion damage [Rokkam et al.]

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal system manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, High Conductivity (HiK™) plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Space, Defense, Energy, Temperature Calibration, Medical, and HVAC.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal, and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

In addition to a pioneering thermal management portfolio, ACT conducts cutting-edge research in the areas of modeling materials behavior using a combination of multiphysics materials models and high-performance computing. Over the last six years, ACT has developed several novel state-of-the-art computational frameworks and custom tools to investigate thermomechanical behavior of materials, materials chemistry and multiphysics behavior of materials in thermal/fluid/electrical environments. These tools enable us to gain fundamental insights as well as predictively model material behavior due to: corrosion damage, crack propagation, multiphysics behavior, material chemistry, thermo-chemical and thermo-mechanical response under extreme conditions.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With an ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high-quality, cost-effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission-critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com

ACT Launches Online Tool for Phase Change Material Selection

PCM Heat Sink Example

Lancaster, PA October 25, 2017 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today the launch of its new Phase Change Material PCM Calculator (found at https://www.1-act.com/resources/pcm-calculator/). This tool joins the ACT’s existing suite of online resources and tools that assist our customers in finding the best thermal solution for their many and varied thermal challenges.

According to Marketing Specialist Amanda Hershey, “Our customers have routinely told us how useful they find our heat pipe calculator and our other free on-line tools. With the emergence of many temporary thermal storage applications, including reduced weight Directed Energy Weapons and Small Sat thermal controls, as well as one-time use functions for airline black boxes and missiles, we’re confident our web visitors will find great value from the PCM Calculator.”

The tool provides PCM material options that best serve their temporary thermal storage needs, anywhere from -10°C to 85°C, and it’s very easy to use. To determine appropriate PCM materials, the user simply inputs a few simple Parameters: Initial Temperature of the heat source, Final Temperature (or PCM melt temperature), Amount of Power the PCM Heat Sinks needs to be able to absorb, Amount of Time the PCM Heat sink needs to absorb the power while still maintaining the final temperature, and finally some PCM Heat Sink Base Dimensions.

PCM Calculator Input

The Calculator will offer solutions with three different PCMs, detailing the Volume, Mass, and Energy Stored in Latent Heat for each of the PCM materials. These results are also graphed, showing the expected transient performance for up to three different PCMs suitable for your application. These results are approximate since the calculator assumes a general fin thickness; ACT develops custom solutions with the optimal fin thickness for each application’s unique requirements.

Further, the data can be printed or saved as a PDF and submitted to the Thermal Experts at ACT to discuss your application in detail. ACT designs and fabricates PCM Heat Sinks, so we can help provide the hardware solution to your temporary thermal storage needs.

PCM Calculator Output

Additionally, ACT has compiled a thermal storage resource page that provides additional information on thermal storage, PCM heat sink design, current Research and Development, as well as several thermal storage webinars.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures PCM heat sinks, cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, custom thermal, fluid, and mechanical systems, and pumped liquid and two-phase loops for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Donates “Thermal Zone” Exhibit to Lancaster Science Factory

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, August 22, 2017 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), together with the Lancaster Science Factory (LSF), announces today the successful unveiling of “Thermal Zone,” a new heat transfer exhibit featuring three interactive stations to demonstrate each type of heat transfer: Convection, Conduction, and Radiation.

Designed for children 8-13 years old, the stations respectively feature a crank-controlled fan that blows air over aluminum to demonstrate convective cooling, an interactive feature of several materials and their differences in thermal conductivity, and a high-tech thermal camera that displays the radiated heat of visitors themselves!

Bob Herbert, Director of Operations at the Lancaster Science Factory, ensured that the development of the exhibit met their educational and structural standards.  Bob said of the exhibit, “One of the scientific principles we were looking to add to our exhibit hall was the concept of heat transfer.  The partnership with ACT was the perfect collaboration to make that happen.  We are excited for our visitors to experience heat transfer in an interactive way and are very grateful for the expertise and professionalism that ACT has provided.”

The partnership between ACT and LSF began in late 2015. ACT’s Committee for Corporate Social Responsibility connected with LSF to investigate potential collaborations. LSF features several engaging educational exhibits, but lacked an exhibit that featured the concepts of heat transfer. The team at ACT, known across many industries as “The Thermal Management Experts,” saw an opportunity to share their technical knowledge with the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Over the course of almost a year, “Thermal Zone” was designed, manufactured, and assembled by ACT employees in a largely volunteer effort, with both materials and employee labor time donated by the company.  Dr. Zuo, President of ACT, said of the project, “ACT is devoted to the support of not only the Lancaster community, but also the development of Lancaster’s STEM network. We are pleased to be a part of educating and inspiring children in partnership with the efforts of the Lancaster Science Factory.”

“Thermal Zone” is on display now at the Lancaster Science Factory, along with over 65 other exhibits relating to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ABOUT LANCASTER SCIENCE FACTORY

The Lancaster Science Factory is a non-profit science and technology center located at 454 New Holland Avenue, Lancaster, PA. The mission of the Lancaster Science Factory is to create an environment of learning which helps children develop curiosity, think creatively and build self-confidence as they learn the principles of science and the application of science in engineering and technology. For general information and admission prices, please call 717.509.6363 or visit www.lancastersciencefactory.org

MEDIA CONTACT

Bob Herbert
Director of Operations
E-mail: BHerbert@tlsf.org
Phone: +1 (717) 509-6363 x102
www.lancastersciencefactory.org

ACT Achieves Space Flight Heritage for Copper Water Heat Pipes and HiK™ Plates

Lancaster, PA June 26, 2017 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has achieved space flight heritage for its copper/water heat pipes and High Conductivity (HiK™) plates  following the successful thermal testing on board the International Space Station (ISS).

Both copper/water heat pipes and HiK™ plates are very commonly used for thermal management of electronics equipment on earth, but have not been used in spacecraft thermal control applications due to the satellite industry’s requirement that any device or system be successfully tested in a microgravity environment prior to adoption.  In the ISS test, the heat pipes were embedded in a HiK™ aluminum base plate, and subject to a variety of thermal tests over a temperature range of -10 to 38 ºC for a ten-day period.  Results showed excellent agreement with both predictions and ground testing results.  The HiK™ plate underwent 15 freeze-thaw cycles between -30 and 70 ºC during ground testing, and an additional 14 freeze-thaw cycles during the ISS test. As a reference, other HiK™ plates have been tested for thousands of freeze-thaw cycles without problems.

“This is a significant milestone and expands the thermal solutions we can offer to our satellite and spacecraft customers,” according to Dr. William Anderson, ACT’s Chief Engineer. “We already have over 18 million hours of flight heritage for our aluminum/ammonia constant conductance heat pipes (CCHPs). Now we can offer full system thermal solutions; spot cooling of electronic devices with our copper/water heat pipes, effective heat spreading of electronic boards and enclosures with our HiK™ plates, and efficient heat transport outside the electronics control box to dissipate the heat with our CCHPs. No other company can offer all of that.”

The ISS is the only long-duration platform in the space environment that can be used to validate these advanced technologies. ACT has been working with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA Johnson Space Center under the Advanced Passive Thermal experiment (APTx) project to achieve this result.

Dr. Mohammed Ababneh, ACT’s Principal Investigator on the project, said, “This flight test onboard ISS is an important step toward qualifying copper/water heat pipes as a passive thermal management solution in support of future human and robotic space exploration missions by NASA.”

ACT’s HiK™ plate was fabricated under a NASA Phase II SBIR contract at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) with Dr. Jeff Farmer as the technical monitor.  The HiK™ plate formed part of a suite of devices flown inside the Advanced Passive Thermal experiment (APTx), a project funded by the ISS Technology Demonstration Office at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Its aim is to start addressing current technical gaps in thermal management systems for future human and robotic exploration missions.  Mr. Angel Alvarez-Hernandez and Dr. Jeff Farmer are the APTx principal investigators, which is a collaboration between JSC, MSFC, the University of Texas, and Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Megan Ulrich
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: megan.ulrich@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 295-6061
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Expands to New Market with First Grant from USDA

Poultry Growhouse (Used with permission: University of Georgia Poultry Environmental Management and Energy Conservation)

Lancaster, PA  May 15, 2017 –  Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announces its recent win of a Phase I grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop thermal management technology specifically to improve animal welfare in poultry grow houses. The low cost, dust resistant poultry house heat exchanger represents the first ever funding for ACT by the USDA.

Adequate ventilation has been recognized as one of the most influential factors in maintaining a safe and comfortable environment for these chickens.  However,  poultry heat exchangers can quickly become blocked with feathers and dust.

The awarded project will develop an ultra-low cost “inflatable” heat exchanger design, which can be replaced when it clogs at little expense.  This solution is a progressive improvement over the commonly used rigid fin and tube heat exchanger coils.

R&D Engineer Brian Schwartz led the project and commented, “I received such enthusiastic support from our local agricultural experts. Turning this project into products we can sell to benefit local farmers and their animals is really inspiring.”

ACT’s innovative Research and Development group continues to seek out novel and diverse opportunities in new markets beyond common thermal management applications.  For more information on ACT’s R&D group and their innovations, please visit www.1-ACT.com/innovations/

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

Advanced Cooling Technologies’ Sealed Enclosure Coolers Achieve UL Certification

ACT-HSC Sealed Enclosure Cooler

Lancaster, PA May 3, 2017 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announced today that UL Recognition and UL Listing testing have been successfully completed for its Heat Sink Cooler (HSC) and Heat Pipe Cooler (HPC) Series products. ACT’s sealed enclosure coolers are used to dissipate heat generated inside enclosures or cabinets that house and protect electrical/electronic equipment from harmful environments.

The 115VAC units received a UL listing mark. All other voltage versions (230VAC, 12VDC, 24VDC, and 48VDC) are UR Rated/UL Recognized. These approvals are required by OEM’s and Systems Integrators, which are required to follow the UL 508 Standard for Industrial Control Panels.

In addition to achieving UL Certification, the products successfully passed NEMA rating tests. ACT’s sealed enclosure coolers meet UL 50E waterproof testing that qualifies the products to be used in NEMA 12, 3R, 4, and 4X designated applications.

ACT’s Sealed Enclosure Coolers for NEMA 12 cabinets are typically used indoors and provide protection against drips, dust and falling dirt. NEMA 3R coolers are typically used in outdoor applications that will be exposed to rain. And, NEMA 4 and 4X coolers are typically used indoors or outdoors and must be water tight under intense wash down/ spray down usage. The NEMA 4X version, while similar to NEMA 4, is further ruggedized with 316 stainless steel covers and epoxy coated fins for enhanced corrosion protection. Sealed enclosure coolers are required to efficiently transfer heat from the inside cabinet space to the outside environment while maintaining the mounting seal.

ACT-HSC Heat Pipe Cooler

ACT’s HSC series of coolers are based on a patent pending design that utilizes thermally efficient air impingement technology and heat sink components, which have been perfected and are being mass produced and used by the computer industry. As a result, the HSC series offer some of the best performance/cost ratios among all sealed enclosure coolers.

ACT’s HPC series of enclosure coolers is based on the popular heat pipe heat exchanger technology and it incorporates advanced fin features for enhanced heat transfer performance. As a result, the HPC series offer some of the best performance/volume and performance/cost ratios among similar products.

More information about ACT’s sealed enclosure cooler products, including datasheets, user manuals, an online selection tool and online purchasing, can be found at: www.1-ACT.com/Enclosure-Cooling.

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, LED, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality and cost effective thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

Media Contact

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 295-6121

ACT Launches New Website with Improved Form and Functionality

Lancaster, PA  March 16, 2017 –  Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) invites visitors to explore their new website launched this week, located at the same web address of www.1-act.com.  The new design provides user-friendly experience with improved navigation and functionality, allowing visitors to access the vast library of technical information and thermal management resources.

The site was designed to be responsive to the device of the visitor, whether mobile, tablet or desktop.  This creates a more optimized view of information on each webpage, no matter the device being used.

To better align with ACT’s core value of Innovation, the previously categorized “R&D” and “Technologies” sections of the site have been merged into a new menu item called “Innovations.”  Frequent users may find other content to be better organized in an easy-to-find fashion.  As before, an on-site search bar provides users relevant results to specific keyword searches.

As always, ACT’s popular thermal management resources will remain available without registration, including the online Heat Pipe Calculator, HVAC Selection Tools, and Enclosure Cooling Selection Tools.

ACT has also added new Case Studies to include more relevant and editorial stories of how our partners have benefited from ACT’s thermal management expertise.

Marketing Specialist Amanda Hershey, who led the project, said of the upgrade, “We believe the new website will further enhance our user’s experience.  ACT has an expansive site full of rich technical information and useful interactive tools.  The key challenge was to provide the improved functionality while maintaining our high quality technical content.  We’re very excited about this upgrade.”

Visitors are encouraged to browse the new website at www.1-act.com.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Passes Surveillance Audit for AS9100 Quality Standards

Lancaster, PA – December 21, 2016  – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has successfully passed its AS9100 surveillance audit. AS9100 is a strict set of standards for quality assurance and risk management adopted by the aerospace industry.

The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by the external organization Intertek Testing Services, reviewed ACT’s effectiveness in meeting quality and safety requirements in the design and manufacturing of products for the aerospace industry.

“Passing the stringent surveillance audit again validates ACT’s effective QMS for providing mission critical products and services for the aerospace industry” stated John Hartenstine, ACT’s Vice President of Operations and Quality Assurance. “ACT is committed to providing our customers with the highest standard of professional practice and the highest quality of products and services.  Quality and continuous improvement are our basic operating principles.”

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

Next Generation NOAA / NASA Weather Satellite Launched, ACT Named As Critical Supplier

November 2016 Launch of GOES-R

Lancaster, PA December 8, 2016 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc.  (ACT) announces its contribution to the recent launch of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R).  GOES-R is the next generation of geostationary weather satellites incorporating Harris Corporation’s new Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI).   The ABI provides three times more data and color, four times better resolution, and five times faster speed than previous technologies.  ACT’s aluminum / ammonia constant conductance heat pipes (CCHPs) are a key component to the thermal management system of the ABI.

The partnership between ACT and Harris dates back to 2006, when ACT first began manufacturing CCHPs.  Each ABI utilizes fourteen (14) unique heat pipe geometries to isothermalize mounting structures and transport excess heat from the ABI electronics to the thermal dissipation radiators.  ACT’s CCHP manufacturing program benefitted greatly from the collaboration and experiences of the team at Harris and the NASA oversight.  Since this program, ACT has continued to produce space qualified CCHPs for over thirty (30) satellites for many satellite manufacturers, and has accumulated over 15 million CCHP operating hours on orbit.

The CCHPs for the Advanced Baseline Imager utilized six unique, single or dual bore aluminum extrusions. Many of the pipes were precisely bent to complex 3-D configurations to fit into the tightly packaged ABI system.  Some of the pipes were combined into multi-pipe assemblies, utilizing low thermal resistance, soldered on, precisely machined mounting saddles.   The CCHPs were designed and built to assure constant, high performance across the satellite’s thirty year projected mission duration. By the end of the project, ACT delivered CCHPs for four satellites: GOES-R, S, T and U.

“It was great working with the team at Harris”, says Pete Dussinger, ACT’s Vice President of Strategic Product Development and the ABI CCHP project lead, “Our heat pipe expertise, along with Harris’ space systems experience, enabled us to manufacture and deliver high performance and high quality CCHPs for this national asset class satellite program.”

GOES satellites are continuously monitoring the western hemisphere and are a key asset in weather forecasting.  This next generation GOES (R, S, T, and U), carrying the advanced baseline imager, will be able to transfer more data (3X), at a higher resolution (4X), and deliver it faster (5X).  This will allow for a significant increase in forecasting accuracy and storm preparedness, nearly real-time compared to the previous thirty minute refresh cycle.

In 2011, ACT was presented the Harris Outstanding Supplier Award for its critical role in the ABI program. “We appreciate Harris’ confidence in our technology and manufacturing capabilities”, says Jon Zuo, President of ACT, “ACT’s employees are proud of the part we had to play in developing such an important national asset.”

To learn more about ACT, and its flight history of CCHPs, visit www.1-ACT.com

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

ACT Develops Loop Thermosyphon for Solar ThermoElectricity

Lancaster, PA October 24, 2016 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announces the successful design, manufacturing, and testing of a loop thermosyphon based thermal valve in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).  The loop thermosyphon developed by ACT uses liquid sodium as the working fluid, and is capable of transferring over 3 kW of energy from source to sink when operated at 600°C.  It was developed to test and show the feasibility of modular, dispatchable, and scalable energy sources.

The Solar ThermoElectricity via Advanced Latent Heat Storage (STEALS) program integrates several state-of-the-art technologies to provide electricity on demand. In the envisioned STEALS system, concentrated sunlight is converted to heat at a solar absorber. The heat is then delivered to either a thermoelectric (TE) module for direct electricity generation, or to charge a phase change material for thermal energy storage. The key to making STEALS a dispatchable technology lies in the development of a “thermal valve,” which controls when heat is allowed to flow through the TE module, thus controlling when electricity is generated.

ACT’s contributions to this project started with a design study, iterated on various design items including transport length, evaporator and condenser designs, and valve design.  The project evolved into building a prototype unit for successful testing.  NREL is moving forward with Phase 2 of this program which involves additional testing and may move to Phase 3, where ACT may build a larger version.

“Sodium loop thermosyphons with integral valves offer the high performance, high reliability and control features that are required to meet next generation thermal and electrical storage requirements,” explains Rebecca Weigand, R&D Engineer at ACT.

ACT is looking forward to the opportunity to build a higher capacity iteration of the loop thermosyphon to better fit within scaled up final configurations of the ultimate system. ACT has developed and built loop thermosyphons for use in various power electronics, medical, and aerospace applications in the past.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Awarded over $3M in R&D Contracts

Analysis of a Heat Pipe Chamber

Lancaster, PA October 10, 2016 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), announced today that it is continuing its rapid technology diversification through multiple R&D contract wins.  In 2015 and early 2016 ACT was awarded over 15 new contracts, totaling more than 3 million dollars, through government-funded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) and Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) programs.  These contracts were awarded from several different government agencies, including DOE, DOD (Air Force, Army, Navy), and NASA.  These contracts will enable development of innovative thermal management technologies and perform R&D in new areas that include corrosion-resistant coatings, energy conservation, and unique test rigs.

According to Dr. William Anderson, Chief Engineer at ACT, “In addition to our research on thermal technologies, these awards demonstrate ACT’s continued diversification into R&D areas such as combustion, power plant dry cooling, and advanced modeling.”

Notable examples of recent awards include:

• Development of Novel Peridynamics Framework for Corrosion Fatigue Damage Prediction (Navy)
• Enhanced Dropwise Condensation for Improved Dry Cooling Efficiency (DOE)
• Vapor Chamber with Phase Change Material-Based Wick Structure for Thermal Control of Manned Spacecraft (NASA)
• Titanium-Water Heat Pipe Radiator for Spacecraft Fission Power (NASA)
• Hybrid Heat Pipes for High Heat Flux Applications (NASA)
• A Non-Catalytic JP-8 Reformer (DOE)
• An Innovative VOCs Incinerator (DOE)
• Hot Surface Ignition Test Apparatus (Air Force)
• Environmental Control Unit with Integrated Thermal Storage (Air Force)
• Innovative High Temperature Heat Pipes for Space Nuclear Fission (NASA)
• Active Thermal Control System Optimization (Navy)
• PCM-Based Ocean Thermal Energy Harvesting System (Navy)
• Design & Development of Low CTE, High Heat Flux Vapor Chambers for Power Module Cooling (Army)
• Multi-physics tool for predicting fatigue crack propagation using Phase field models (Navy)
• Physics-based Toolkit for Progressive Damage Prediction in Composites (Navy)

This year, ACT has continued to expand its R&D into new areas such as:

• Physics based modeling of fatigue crack propagation in composites and corrosion phenomena in metals
• Hypersonics
• Advanced thermal storage for dry power plant cooling and air conditioning
• Combustion research for air pollution control, and test rig design for turbine combustion research
• Development of a copper/water heat pipe test rig for testing on the International Space Station

Many of ACT’s R&D programs are in collaboration with industrial and academic partners.  Ahe academic partners in the past year include: Columbia University, Drexel University, Florida State University, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M, University of California, Merced, University of Maryland, and the University of Southern California.

High Temperature Test Rig uses an Alkali Metal Vapor Chamber to Map Out the Flammability Limit During a Fuel Spill

For more information about these emerging technologies, visit our website https://www.1-act.com/rd/

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Increases Phase Change Material (PCM) Design and Manufacturing Capabilities

Lancaster, PA September 14, 2016 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), announced today it has increased its design and manufacturing capabilities to meet increasing demand for its Phase Change Materials (PCM) heat sink products.  These temporary thermal storage solutions are becoming a critical element in military applications involving short mission durations, pulse mode operation, and directed energy.  In these heatsinks, the PCM absorbs heat during device “on” times, without increasing temperature, by undergoing a solid to liquid phase change.  The heat is dissipated during device “off” times through the reverse liquid to solid phase transition.  This method allows for simple, lightweight thermal solutions. In many cases, complex liquid or air cooled systems can be replaced or coupled with a thermal storage component to reduce size, weight and power (SWaP).

The demand for these ruggedized, high performing PCM heat sinks has led to new innovations to improve the quality and accuracy in the heat sink design and manufacturing.  ACT’s Defense and Aerospace Engineering Manager, Jens Weyant, stated, “We have developed prediction tools to quickly identify the optimal fin pitch, thickness, and PCM material.  This allows us to focus on the critical and proprietary features on the design such as minimizing stress during the solid to liquid phase transition, minimizing device weight and maximizing thermal storage capability.  We have also expanded our selection of sealing approaches and PCM charging stations.  We’re positioned to support our customer’s needs from design to prototype to volume production.”

Specifically ACT has developed the following tools to enable faster and more accurate response to customer needs.  These include:

• Internal Geometry Optimization Tools
• Cross Channel Communication, Pressure Management
• Repeatable and precise processing and sealing
• Transient Modeling and Testing Validation
• Multiple Enclosure Manufacturing Options: 3D Printing, Laser Welding, TIG Welding, Brazing

“With these improvements our customers can be confident we are supplying the most cost effective and highest quality PCM Heat Sinks available,” Weyant concluded.

ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Delivers Thermal Solutions for Smart Wires’ Dynamic Grid Products

Lancaster, PA August 5, 2016 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), announced today that after two years of strong collaborations, they are routinely delivering thermal-management hardware to Smart Wires.  Smart Wires Inc., an innovative technology  company located in the San Francisco Bay Area,  developed a revolutionary product,  the Power Router^TM, which adjusts the flow of power across grid lines by controlling impedance levels.  This control enables power companies to push or pull power as required, offering customers a more reliable source of electricity.  The product utilizes power-electronics devices which need well-engineered thermal-management solutions for enhancing reliability.  That’s where ACT came in.

According to Haroon Inam, Chief Technology Officer at Smart Wires, “We knew in the early development stages that we would need to address thermal issues and it would require a partner with industry-leading thermal-management engineering expertise. Within days of our request, ACT sent out an engineering team to help us pinpoint any thermal issues. They then designed and delivered effective solutions and have become a key part of our team.  ACT has been a highly reliable and responsive partner.”

According to Devin Pellicone, Lead Engineer for ACT, “working with the Smart Wires team has been an exciting challenge for us.  They set, and met, ambitious deadlines and goals that required us to rapidly develop innovative thermal solutions.  It’s been very rewarding to help them position themselves for great commercial success.  We believe this work has established a strong collaboration that we expect will only get stronger.”

Advanced Cooling Technologies is a leader in providing thermal management solutions for challenging applications.  Its broad portfolio of thermal technologies includes pumped two phase, pumped single phase (liquid) cooling, thermal storage and heat pipe based passive solutions.  For more information, please visit www.1-ACT.com

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Recovery Systems.

ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

The R&D team at ACT has engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, materials, manufacturing and physics. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

ACT’s Facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality, cost effective, thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite, and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications. Simultaneously ACT’s broad and diverse R&D efforts are developing thermal solutions for tomorrow’s emerging technologies.

For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Enclosure Coolers Successfully Certified to UL50E for NEMA 4, 3, 3R, and 12 Installations

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – July 12, 2016.  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announces the successful certification of the HPC and HSC sealed enclosure cooling product lines to the NEMA (UL50E) standard. This standard tests enclosures with electrical equipment and their environmental considerations.  The testing took place at the Underwriter Laboratories (UL) test facility in Melville, New York.

During the test, a sample electrical equipment enclosure with an ACT enclosure cooler installed was subjected to a stream of water from a hose having a 1.0 inch inside diameter nozzle delivering 65 gallons per minute flow rate.  The stream was directed at all joints of the enclosure cooler from a distance of 10.0 feet and was moved along each seam at a nominal rate of ¼ of an inch per second.  At the conclusion of the test the internal surfaces of the cabinet were examined for any water entry.  Both ACT products passed the testing by allowing no water to enter the enclosure during the test.

A successful passing of the UL50E test certifies that the HSC and HPC product lines will maintain the existing integrity when installed on a NEMA 4, 3, 3R, and 12 type cabinets.

Sealed enclosure coolers are used to dissipate heat from inside enclosures that house and protect electrical/electronic equipment from harmful external, typically wet, environments.  These cabinets are typically sealed to a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standard.  For example, a NEMA 12 cabinet is for indoor use and protects against drops, dust and falling dirt, while a NEMA 4 cabinet is for outdoor use and must be water tight.  Sealed enclosure coolers are required to efficiently transfer heat from the inside space to the outside environment while maintaining a tight water tight seal.  A NEMA 3R rating is for outdoor applications that protect against falling rain.

ACT Enclosure Cooling Systems can be ordered directly online.  ACT provides an easy-to-use online Enclosure Cooling Selection Tool.  The tool will offer several variants based on size and mounting preferences. Once satisfied with the selection simply click on the order item link that takes you to the ACT Online Store Front.

ACT Enclosure Coolers typically ship from stock to under one week.  For full information about the ACT-HPC & HSC series please visit www.1-ACT.com/Enclosure-Cooling.

About ACT:

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), is a premier thermal management solutions company. Under our ISO9001 and AS9100 certifications, we design and manufacture products for diverse applications including HVAC systems, satellite thermal control, commercial/military electronics cooling, and temperature calibration. In addition, our responsive, customer-focused team provides innovative engineering and advanced research and development. ACT’s full product range and capabilities can found at www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Brunish
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Brunish@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-6061
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Enters Sealed Enclosure Cooling Market

ACT-HSC Sealed Enclosure Coolers

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – April 4, 2016. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today the launch of its HSC, HPC and LNC series of sealed enclosure cooler products. This launch is the first step of ACT’s entrance into the sealed enclosure cooling market.

Sealed enclosure coolers are used to dissipate heat inside enclosures or cabinets that house and protect electrical/electronic equipment from harmful environments. These cabinets are typically sealed to a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standard. For example, a NEMA 12 cabinet is for indoor use and protects against drips, dust and falling dirt, while a NEMA 4 cabinet is for outdoor use and must be water tight. Sealed enclosure coolers are required to efficiently transfer heat from the inside space to the outside environment while maintaining the seal.

ACT’s HSC series of coolers are based on a patent pending design that utilizes the air impingement technology that is thermally efficient and the heat sink components which have been perfected and are being mass produced and used by the computer industry. As a result, the HSC series offer some of the best performance/cost ratios among all sealed enclosure coolers.

ACT’s HPC series of coolers are based on the popular heat pipe heat exchanger technology and incorporate advanced fin features for enhanced heat transfer performance. As a result, the HPC series offer some of the best performance/volume and performance/cost ratios among similar products.

ACT-HPC Heat Pipe Cooler Series

ACT’s LNC series of coolers are based on a patent pending design that utilizes a HSC-style air impingement heat sink to collect heat from the hot inside air and a larger extruded heat sink to dissipate the heat to the outside ambient via natural convection. Heat pipes are used to spread the heat from the
smaller internal heat sink to the larger external heat sink. By reducing or eliminating the fans on the external side, the LNC series offer the lowest (or zero) noise performance.

“Sealed enclosure coolers are logical extensions of many products that we currently manufacture for satellite, defense, medical and HVAC applications,” said Mr. Peter Dussinger, Vice President of Strategic Products at ACT. “We’re very excited about bringing innovation to the sealed enclosure cooling market, starting with today’s launch of these three products,” continued Mr. Dussinger, “Stay tuned for our next product launches in the near future.”

More information about ACT’s sealed enclosure cooler products, including datasheets, user manuals, an online selection tool and an online purchasing system, can be found at: www.1-ACT.com/Enclosure-Cooling.

About ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK™ plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, LED, and Energy Recovery Systems.
ACT’s team consists of personnel with established track records in technology development, commercialization and production. Many of them were involved in the pioneering work on heat pipes, loop heat pipes and other single and two-phase heat transfer devices. They are the inventors/co-inventors on numerous U.S. and international patents and the authors/co-authors of hundreds of scientific publications.

ACT’s facility measures more than 50,000 square feet, including office, laboratory and manufacturing spaces. With ISO9001 and AS9100 certified quality system in place, the facility has designed and manufactured high quality and cost effective thermal management solutions for dozens of mission critical satellite and military programs as well as for numerous commercial applications.
For more information about ACT, please visit www.1-ACT.com.

MEDIA CONTACT

Amanda Hershey
Marketing Specialist
E-mail: Amanda.Hershey@1-ACT.com
Phone: +1 (717) 205-0625
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Heat Pipes Reach 10 Million Hours On-Orbit Milestone

An example of one of ACT’s CCHPs currently in Orbit

An example of one of ACT’s CCHPs currently in Orbit

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – March 1, 2016. Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announced today that its Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHP’s) have successfully surpassed 10 million total hours in-orbit, providing reliable thermal management on-board satellites and ISS cargo resupply vehicles. The CCHP’s provide passive thermal control for critical systems including avionics, batteries, high sensitivity optics, sophisticated scientific instruments, and communication equipment. Over 500 of ACT’s CCHPs are currently installed and operating on-board dozens of spacecraft for missions including communications, meteorology, and national security.

“Our rapid growth in the aerospace market is a testimony to ACT’s commitment to quality, affordability, and on time delivery to our customers,” says Mike DeChristopher, Lead Engineer of Defense Aerospace Products Group.  “As new and returning customers continue to trust ACT with their critical thermal management needs, we are excited and proud to participate in the supply chain for such an elite and growing market.”

ACT’s Defense Aerospace Products Group consists of personnel having diverse engineering and technical skills, making the group capable of solving some of the most demanding thermal management problems in military, spacecraft and aircraft. The group’s customer-focused approach is driving rapid growth and allowing ACT to quickly become a trusted supplier of flight-quality products, advanced research and development, and thermal management consulting services for the aerospace industry.  The group’s satellite thermal control products include:

• CCHP, VCHP, LHP
  • Build-to-print, or custom designs
  • Embedded and External Mount
  • In-House and Custom Extrusions
  • 2D and 3D Configurations
  • Integration with Radiators
  • Aerospace Qualified Soldered Assemblies
• Titanium Struts
• Accumulators

The group also provides complete thermal and mechanical design and analysis services for spacecraft Thermal Control Systems.

ACT Provides Thermal Management Design for New LED Theater Lighting Product

ETC’s Source 4WRD LED Module which utilizes ACT thermal management design

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – February 2, 2016. Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announced today that it provided thermal management design for Electronic Theater Controls’ (ETC) recently launched Source 4WRD LED Theater Lighting Retrofit Module.  The Source 4WRD uses LED Technology to match the performance of the 575W HPL Lamp, with 70% less power and no re-lamping.  However LEDs generate a lot of waste heat and the higher source temperatures can cause unwanted color shifts and reduced life.  That’s where the Thermal Management Experts at ACT came in.  Working with Dave Cunningham of Entertec, ACT helped develop a completely passive thermal management solution to move the heat away from the LEDs.

According to Dr. Richard Bonner, Mgr of ACT’s Commercial Products Group, “This was a challenging thermal management design.  We were required to come up with a heat pipe based solution that could continuously and rapidly transfer over 100W away from the LEDs in any lamp orientation. Through a lot of hard work and good collaboration with Cunningham and ETC, we were able to accomplish that goal.”

Dave Lincecum, VP of Marketing for ETC stated, “Working with the ACT Thermal Engineers, we were able to develop a reliable thermal management solution that allows our theater lighting customers to take advantage of the many benefits of LED technology.”

ACT has provided thermal management solutions for over a decade to many other commercial and military applications.  For more information please visit us at LED Thermal Management.

ACT to Demo New Energy Recovery Technologies at AHR 2016

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – January 7, 2016.  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), is pleased to announce its participation in the 2016 AHR exhibition to be held January 25 – January 27, 2016 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

AHR Expo 2016 presents the drive for greater energy efficiency, greener products and sustainable technologies has accelerated the pace at which new products and innovations are coming to market. In this challenging economy. The expo will feature over 1,800 manufacturers and suppliers of the latest HVACR systems, equipment, products and services.

ACT will be exhibiting at booth #4287.  New live demos of Wrap-Around and Air-To-Air Energy Recovery products will be taking place in the booth.  ACT will also be featuring and introducing the new “ACTIVE” Control Valve, ACT-ACV.  Optimizing heat pipe performance during part load conditions is required in some WAHX installations. The ACT-ACV now makes it affordable and competitive to consider heat pipe control in a variety of applications. This valve compliments 2015’s introduction of ACT’s Thermal Passive Valve.

ACT Participates in Prestigious DOE Program on Extreme-Scale Computing

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – December 30, 2015. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is pleased to announce its participation in a leading edge U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded training program aimed at nurturing the next generation of computational scientists. Dr. Srujan Rokkam, a Lead Engineer at ACT, was one of only 65 participants selected from a worldwide pool of applicants to attend the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing (ATPESC) funded by the DOE’s Office of Science. The two-week ATPESC program provided intensive hands-on training on key skills which are necessary to develop computational science and engineering tools on leadership-class supercomputers of the future.

“ATPESC provided exposure to a broad spectrum of computational topics,” says Rokkam.  “Subjects included parallel programming architectures, numerical libraries, HPC codes, visualization and debugging methodologies. The computational skills learned at ATPESC, will directly benefit development of scientific software across many industries, including work here at ACT. ”

According to Dr. Bill Anderson, Chief Engineer at ACT, “Srujan’s participation in the ATPESC program is an indication of the cutting edge computational research undertaken at ACT. We develop novel scientific tools which provide high-fidelity predictive modeling capabilities and cost-savings for both government and commercial customers. This area of advanced modeling has attracted over $4 million in R&D contracts at ACT in the last 5 years.”

For more information about these ACT’s computational technologies, visit our Advanced Modeling page.

Dr. Rokkam with Dr. Paul Messina, Director of Science for the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, during the ATPESC program.

 ABOUT ACT

ACT specializes in advanced thermal technology development, custom thermal product manufacturing, and advanced modeling of ultiscale/multiphysics phenomena. ACT designs and manufactures cold plates, HiK plates, heat pipes, pumped liquid and two phase loops and thermal storage devices for customers in diverse markets including Aerospace, Electronics, Temperature Calibration, Medical Device, and Energy Systems.

ACT’s broad and diverse thermal technology portfolio is a direct result of its strong commitment to R&D. The R&D team at ACT has rich history of modeling materials phenomenon from the nanoscale (several atoms) to the micron level and up to the macroscale (engineering length scale). The R&D team at ACT has scientists and engineers with backgrounds in mechanical, electrical, chemical, aerospace, nuclear, material science, physics and computational science. Their expertise assures we can serve wide variety of material, thermal and modeling challenges in diverse applications.

Dr. Rokkam’s Computational R&D group at ACT conducts cutting edge research in the areas of modeling ablation response, computational chemistry, peridynamics based damage modeling, corrosion damage modeling and modeling of hypersonic CFD phenomena. Over the last five years, ACT has developed several novel state of the art computational frameworks and custom tools to investigate thermomechanical behavior of materials, materials chemistry and multiphysics behavior of materials in thermal/fluid/electrical environments. Most of these tools are delivered to the sponsoring agencies like NASA, DOD, and DOE to facilitate their research undertakings or design analysis.

ACT has multiple workstations (Linux/Mac) onsite to undertake the modeling research. In addition, the engineers have access to high performance computing resources with hundreds of computing cores at DoD and NSFXSEDE Supercomputers, to undertake computationally intensive simulations.

For more information about ACT’s R&D Capabilities, please visit ACT Research & Development.

Media Contact:

Pete Ritt
Vice President, Technical Services
E-mail: Pete.Ritt@1-ACT.com
www.1-ACT.com

ACT Recertified for ISO and AS9100 Quality Standards

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – December 8, 2015 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. a premier thermal management solutions company, announced today that it has successfully passed a rigorous full recertification audit for ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100C.  The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by accredited registrar Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets.

Over the past several years, ACT has experienced growth in the aerospace and defense markets as well as a facility expansion for its energy recovery heat-exchange units.  “Successfully passing the AS9100 audit during this exciting growth/expansion period is a testament to our commitment to customer satisfaction, and manufacturing excellence” stated John Hartenstine, ACT’s Vice President of Operations and Quality Assurance.

ACT Wins National Physical Laboratory UK Bid for PCHPs

Figure 1: Pressure controlled heat pipe calibrating furnace and controls.

Lancaster, PA, November 5, 2015 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), Lancaster, PA., recently won a new order to deliver two pressure controlled heat pipe (PCHP) calibrators to the National Physical Laboratory (located in the United Kingdom).   One of the PCHP calibrators will  feature a sodium heat pipe with the ability to operate between 700°C and 1,100°C and maintain a temperature stability of +/-5mK.  The other PCHP calibrators will feature a potassium heat pipe with the ability to operate between 400°C and 900°C and also maintain a temperature stability of +/-5mK. The heat pipes each feature 5 thermowells located within the vapor space of the heat pipe along with a blackbody cavity.  The transient stability of the heat pipe is maintained by actively controlling the pressure of the heat pipe’s vapor space, ensuring a stable saturation temperature within the heat pipe.  The pressure is manipulated by changing the effective volume of the heat pipe, simply by moving a sealed bellows.

ACT’s custom products group has supplied heat pipes as isothermal furnaces liners and blackbody cavities to the calibration industry since the company’s inception.  The mature product line has not benefited from any technology advancements over the years.  The pressure controlled heat pipe technology was initially developed on a NASA Goddard Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program several years ago, demonstrating temperature stability in a low-temperature spacecraft PCHP under varying power and sink conditions.  This is the second PCHP order in less than a year.

More information on ACT’s PCHP furnaces can be found online at https://www.1-act.com/products/isothermal-furnace-liner/pressure-controlled-heat-pipe-furnace/

Figure 2: Temperature stability data from PCHP operating near 800°C.

ACT named a Best Place to Work in PA for Third Consecutive Year

Diane Baldassarre accepts the award on behalf of ACT

Lancaster, PA, September 17, 2015 – For the third year in a row, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has been named a Best Place to Work in PA for 2015. The awards program, created in 2000, is one of the first statewide programs of its kind in the country. The program is a public/private partnership between Team Pennsylvania Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Pennsylvania State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Central Penn Business Journal.

Jon Zuo, President of ACT, was pleased to make the announcement to the over 90 ACT employees. “This is the third time for us to receive this award. I want to congratulate everyone for this important accomplishment, and thank you for your hard work in making ACT an enjoyable and productive workplace. In particular, our thanks go to Diane Baldassarre and the members of the BPTW Committee and subcommittees for their tireless efforts in leading and coordinating the numerous projects, campaigns and events.”

This survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Pennsylvania, who are benefiting the state’s economy and its workforce. Employers are categorized based upon the total number of employees they have in the United States, 25 to 249 employees and 250 or more employees.

To be considered for participation, companies had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements:

• Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business
• Be a publicly or privately held business
• Have a facility in Pennsylvania
• Have at least 25 employees working in Pennsylvania
• Be in business a minimum of one year

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the 100 Best Places to Work in PA. The first part of this process was evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophies, systems and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process.

ACT was also named a Best Place to Work in PA for 2013, listed at number 66, and again in 2014 at number 49.

ACT will be recognized at the Best Places to Work in PA awards banquet on Thursday, December 3, 2015, at the Lancaster County Convention Center in Lancaster, PA, receiving a ranking of #66 for 2015.

ACT Announces Facility Expansion

HVAC Energy Recovery Manufacturing Facilities and New Conference/Training Center

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – August 24, 2015 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. a premier thermal management solutions company, announced today the expansion of its facilities from 40,000ft² to 50,000ft² to accommodate its line of energy recovery systems, heat-exchanger units that make buildings’ HVAC systems more efficient.  The 10,000ft² expansion is in response to ACT’s growing presence in the HVAC/Energy Recovery market and was designed to accommodate both small and large heat exchangers to meet customer demands.

“We designed the area to accommodate a wide range of energy recovery-heat exchanger systems, over 16 feet wide x 12 feet tall,” stated John Hartenstine, ACT’s Vice President of Operations and Quality Assurance. “The expansion will increase ACT’s manufacturing capacity to hundreds of systems annually.”

One local energy recovery project of note was located in Penn State.  The new regional Centre Area Transportation Authority – State College (CATA) bus terminal utilized the ACT energy recovery system which captures the buildings warm exhaust air to then pre-heat incoming fresh air to the facility.

The expansion also includes a 2,000 ft² Conference/Training Center with the latest AV technology for customer and corporate meetings, planning, education and training sessions, and company events hosted by ACT’s employee-led committees.

Media Contact

Pete Ritt
Vice President, Technical Services
E-mail: Pete.Ritt@1-ACT.com

ACT Receives Lockheed Martin Contract to Support Missile Development

Photo Courtesy of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Copyright 2015.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – July 20, 2015 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has been awarded a contract from Lockheed Martin to help develop, test and ultimately field the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), a joint program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. LRASM is designed to feature a variety of highly sophisticated technologies that will allow it to execute long-range missions with high accuracy and reliability. ACT is supporting the effort by developing an advanced passive thermal management system to replace the actively pumped system. This system aims to reduce the number of parts and system complexity, which in turn would create higher system reliability. This technology seeks to provide critical mission capability by cooling the electronics responsible for dynamic targeting. ACT is responsible for design, thermal and mechanical analysis, prototyping and thermal testing.

Based on the successful JASSM-ER platform, LRASM is designed to meet the needs of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force for advanced precision-guided missile systems. The technology aims to reduce dependence on external platforms and network links in dense electronic-warfare environments.

ACT Awarded $3M in R&D Contracts

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – June 29, 2015. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it is continuing its rapid technology diversification through multiple R&D contract wins.  In 2014, ACT was awarded over 15 new contracts, totaling more than 3 million dollars, through government-funded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) and Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) programs.

The awards are in addition to the previously announced $4.3M wins from the Department of Energy (DOE) for dry cooling technology development.  The funding agencies included the DOE, the Department of Defense (DOD) and NASA.  These R&D contracts will develop innovative thermal management technologies and explore new areas such as corrosion-resistant coatings, combustion and advanced modeling. According to Dr. William Anderson, Chief Engineer at ACT, “In addition to our research on thermal technologies, these awards demonstrate ACT’s continuing diversification into R&D areas such as coatings, combustion and energy conservation.”   Examples of these awards are listed below. More information on ACT’s R&D activities can be found at ACT R&D.

• Vortical-Flow Direct Contact Air Washer for Corrosion Prevention (Air Force)
• Dry cooling (DOE, APRA-E)
• High Accuracy, Turnkey, Minimum Hot Surface Ignition Test Apparatus (Air Force)
• Highly Efficient, Compact Hydrogen Generator for use in Marine Diesel Engines (Special Operations Command)
• Vapor Chamber with Phase Change Material-Based Wick Structure for Thermal Control of Manned Spacecraft (NASA)
• Ocean Thermal Energy Harvesting System (Navy)
• Hybrid Heat Pipes for High Heat Flux Applications (NASA)
• An Innovative VOCs Incinerator (DOE)
• Titanium/Water Heat Pipe Radiator for Spacecraft Fission Power (NASA)
• Enhanced Dropwise Condensation for Improved Dry Cooling Efficiency (DOE)
• Environmental Control Unit (Air Conditioner) with Integrated Thermal Storage (OSD)
• Variable Conductance Heat Pipes for Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generators (NASA)
• Peridynamics Based Multiscale Modeling of Damage in Thick Composites (DOD)
• Compact Heat Exchangers for Directed Energy Weapons (Navy)

This year, ACT has continued to expand its R&D into new areas such as:

• Physics based modeling of damage in composites and corrosion phenomena in metals
• Advanced thermal storage for Directed Energy Weapons and air conditioning
• Combustion research for air pollution control and basic ignition research
• Corrosion prevention including coatings and salt removal

Many of ACT’s R&D programs are in collaboration with industrial and academic partners.  Some of the academic partners in the past year included: Bucknell University, Colorado School of Mines, Drexel University, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida State University, Lehigh University, North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, Pennsylvania State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Missouri, Valparaiso University, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Southern California.

ACT Delivers Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers for the CATA Facility at Penn State

Figure 1. DLZ Architects Concept of the new
CATA Terminal Building

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – June 15, 2015.Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), Lancaster, PA., was chosen by the Penn State area Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) to provide heat pipe heat exchangers for incorporation into the make-up air units for its new state-of-the-art bus transfer terminal building and maintenance facility, Figure 1. The heat pipe heat exchangers will preheat the incoming cold air, during the winter season, by transferring energy from the exhaust air stream.  The transport authority has a fleet of 92 natural gas engine buses serving 32 routes with over 7.3 million riders annually.  ACT’s energy recovery systems have the ability to save over $2,500/week in heating utility costs.

Project Background: CATA’s fleet of busses, Figure 2, are powered by natural gas, which is significantly cleaner and less polluting than traditional diesel powered busses.  However, when the busses are stored indoors or when they are being serviced in the maintenance bays, the engine exhaust products can still be potentially hazardous to the people that work in these facilities.   Therefore, the make-up air units are designed to provide a significant amount of fresh air to prevent unhealthy concentrations of carbon monoxide and other byproducts of the combustion process. The requirement for numerous air changes per hour puts a high demand on the heating systems during the winter season.

Figure 2. CATA’s busses are powered
by natural gas

While large amounts of fresh air are being drawn into the facility, a nearly equal amount of air that has already been heated to the space temperature is being exhausted from the building.  ACT’s air-to-air heat pipe heat exchangers are placed across these two air streams.  The heat pipe coil, which is in the warm exhaust stream, extracts thermal energy from the exiting stream.  This energy is transferred to the heat pipe coil that is the incoming air stream through the highly conductive heat pipes.  The heat pipe coil in the incoming stream delivers this thermal energy to the incoming air stream, effectively preheating it prior to passing through the active portion of the air handler (gas burner).   The result is a significant reduction in the amount of energy required to heat the incoming air up to the space temperature.

Figure 3.
ACT’s AAHX Energy Recovery System
measuring 6.5 ft. tall by 8 ft. wide

The Application: While there are other types of energy recovery devices, for example plate heat exchangers and enthalpy wheels, the heat pipe was a much better fit for this application.  Plate type heat exchangers where too large to fit into the energy recovery section of the make-up air handlers.  Typically, the energy recovery section of the air handler is designed to incorporate a sensible or enthalpy wheel.  However, in this application, with hazardous (exhaust fumes) and potentially explosive (natural gas) gases, the wheel is not an acceptable solution because of the significant amount of exhaust gas recirculation that is inherent to the wheel design.  Therefore, the heat pipe heat exchanger with the same slim profile as a wheel and the near zero leakage between the exhaust and incoming air streams was the best solution.  The heat pipe heat exchanger has the additional benefit of decades of maintenance free service. There are no motors, bearings, drive belts or that require periodic maintenance or replacement.

Project Scope and Payback: The scale of the project involved the engineering and manufacturing of 11 air-to-air heat exchanger (AAHX) systems ranging in size from approximately 4 ft. x 5 ft. all the way up to 6.5 ft. x 8 ft.  Each self-contained AAHX unit was sent to the air handling manufacturer for final installation into the make-up air handlers.

The calculated energy savings versus the cost of the ACT AAHX units results in a payback period of less than two years.  A few other key statistics are provided below.

• Total energy transferred for the 11 systems is over 3,500,000 Btu/Hr.
• At design conditions, the CATA ACT-AAHX systems save over $2,500/week.
• ACT-AAHX reduces Greenhouse gas emissions by approximately Five (5) tons/day
• The ACT-AAHX units are rated for over 20 years of continuous operation
• No required maintenance other than replacing the air handlers air filters

Media Contact

Mark Stevens
Mark.Stevens@1-ACT.com
www.1-ACT.com/HVAC

ACT Awarded $4.3M to Develop Technologies for Dry Cooling

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – June 8, 2015. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has been selected to develop multiple technologies that can enable dry cooling for thermoelectric power generation, securing over $4.3M in research and development funding.  Dry cooling heat exchangers, as a replacement for wet cooling towers, are becoming of increasing importance as water shortages threaten the availability of water to cool our power plants.  Today, power plants consume approximately 40% of the fresh water used every day.  The technologies that ACT has proposed show promise to help eliminate water usage by dissipating heat directly to air, while maintaining the overall power plant efficiency.

“Forecasted water shortages over the next few decades threaten our ability to farm and provide electricity,” stated Dr. Richard Bonner, Principal Investigator and Manager of Custom Products, “it is our privilege to lead several dry cooling technology development programs chartered with solving such an important challenge.”

In February, ACT was awarded a Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II program to develop a dropwise condensation solution that will reduce the thermal resistance on the inside of steam condensing tubes.  ACT plans on leveraging its porous metal and hydrophobic coating expertise to develop a solution that is high performance, reliable, and cost effective.  The two year, $1.1M program will result in a sub-scale pilot demonstration of a dry cooling radiator enhanced with the proposed dropwise condensation solution.

ACT’s dry cooling technology is looking to improve water usage efficiency in these large power plants

In May, the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awarded $3.2 million in funding to ACT, University of Missouri, Lehigh University, and Evapco, Inc. to help create highly efficient and scalable dry-cooling technologies for thermoelectric power plants. The project is funded through the Advanced Research In Dry cooling (ARID) program, one of ARPA-E’s newest programs.  The team will develop a novel cool storage system that collects and stores heat rejected from a power plant condenser during the day until the waste heat can be more efficiently rejected during the night at lower ambient temperatures. The technology will utilize an array of heat pipes to transfer heat to the thermal storage unit, and will incorporate self (flow-induced) agitated fins to increase air-side heat transfer by 230%. The team will also tailor the thermal properties of the thermal storage media, which will allow the system to be optimized for use in climates with different daytime and nighttime temperatures.

“Evaporative cooling with water is very efficient,” observes Dr. Chien-hua Chen, Lead R&D Engineer, “We realize that advancements in multiple heat transfer technologies and advanced systems level architectures are required to meet the thermal challenge in front of us.”

Media Contact

Pete Ritt
Vice President, Technical Services
E-mail: Pete.Ritt@1-ACT.com

ACT awarded Large Scale International Medical Center Project for Air-to-Air Energy Recovery

Lancaster, PA – May 21, 2015 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has been selected to supply twenty, custom air-to-air heat pipe heat exchanger(AAHXs) for an international medical center project. Ten of the AAHXs are large, side-by-side units. The other nine of the AAHXs are unique, space-saving split and bent design. The remaining AAHX is an innovative, center split, passive loop thermosyphon at over 27 feet long by 12 feet high and will be assembled and charged on-site by an ACT installation team.  

During the winter months, ACT’s energy recovery AAHX products capture waste heat from air streams to pre-heat the incoming make-up air. An important biological health safety requirement with hospitals is that the thermal energy is transferred without any cross contamination between the exhaust air and the make-up air. The energy recovery AAHXs are installed throughout the twenty story medical facility, from the basement to the roof top. Based on the success of this project, ACT and its customer will evaluate the feasibility of using ACT’s Wrap-Around Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers (WAHXs) for enhanced dehumidification and energy savings during the summer air conditioning season.  

ACT was selected over competing technologies for its comprehensive thermal management experience. “Our ability to customize the energy recovery units to fit the complicated installation environment made all the difference for this customer”, commented Mark Stevens, Business Development Manager for ACT’s Energy Recovery Products Group. The project will be completed in July, 2015. The total installed system has an estimated payback period of less than 48 months.  

About ACT: Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is a premier thermal management solutions company. Under our ISO9001 and AS9100 certifications, we design and manufacture products for diverse applications including HVAC energy recovery, satellite thermal control, commercial/military electronics cooling, and temperature calibration. Our responsive, customer-focused team provides innovative engineering and advanced research and development services for clients worldwide. Learn more at www.1-ACT.com/HVAC.

Media Contact:
Mark Stevens
Mark.Stevens@1-ACT.com

ACT Delivers Precision High Temperature Heat Pipe to German Government Lab

Figure 1: Pressure controlled heat pipe calibrating furnace and controls.

Lancaster, PA – Mar 3, 2015 Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announced today that they have recently delivered a pressure controlled heat pipe (PCHP) calibrator to a highly regarded German government calibration institution. The purpose of the calibration product is to calibrate up to 5 thermometers to a reference thermometer. The PCHP calibrator (shown in Figure 1) features a sodium heat pipe with the ability to operate between 600°C and 1,000°C and maintain a temperature stability of +/-5mK over a 2 hour period (some temperature data are shown in Figure 2).  The heat pipe features 6 thermowells located within the vapor space of the heat pipe, maintaining a high degree of temperature uniformity between the thermometers.  The transient stability of the heat pipe is maintained by actively controlling the pressure of the heat pipe’s vapor space, ensuring a stable saturation temperature within the heat pipe.  The pressure is manipulated by changing the effective volume of the heat pipe, simply by moving a sealed bellows.

Figure 2: Temperature stability data from PCHP operating near 800°C.

ACT’s custom products group has supplied heat pipes as isothermal furnaces liners and blackbody cavities to the calibration industry since the company’s inception.  The mature product line has not benefited from any technology advancements over the years.  The pressure controlled heat pipe technology was initially developed on a NASA Goddard Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program several years ago, demonstrating temperature stability in a low-temperature spacecraft PCHP under varying power and sink conditions.  “Translating aerospace R&D results to a high temperature calibration product was very challenging,” continues Dr. Richard Bonner, Manager of Customer Products, “I believe the strong collaboration between our R&D and product development personnel along with the perseverance of our talented team were the keys to our success.”

ACT’s Fluid Accumulators Delivered to the International Space Station

Lancaster, Pennsylvania– January 14, 2015. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) (www.1-ACT.com) announced today four fluid compensation accumulators installed in NASA’s Cloud Aerosol Transport Systems (CATS) instrument were successfully delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX’s CRS 5 dragon capsule which docked with the space station on January 13^th 2015.

The fully stainless steel accumulators provide volumetric compensation for fluid property changes across the broad temperature range experienced in spacecraft applications, from -40°C to 55°C. This new product was designed, manufactured, and qualified by ACT to operate for up to 3 years in this challenging environment. ACT introduced the accumulators in response to multiple requests for a rapid design and development supplier for custom, flight-qualified, fluid compensation systems.

ACT’s Accumulator has been deployed on the ISS. Individual Parts are seen on the left and the welded assembly is seen on the right

“These accumulators are a logical expansion beyond heat pipes for our aerospace product offerings. We’re utilizing the same high-quality flight hardware practices, customer responsiveness, product development innovation, and manufacturing talent sets for a different product in a similar market” says Mike DeChristopher, ACT Lead Engineer, Defense, and Aerospace Products Group.

ACT’s Aerospace Products Group consists of personnel with diverse engineering and technical skills, making the group capable of solving some of the most demanding thermal design, analysis, and fabrication challenges in the spacecraft industry. The group’s customer-focused approach is driving rapid growth and allowing ACT to quickly become a trusted supplier of flight-quality products, advanced research and development, and thermal management consulting services for the spacecraft industry. The group has accumulated a significant on-orbit flight heritage with its heat pipe products.

The group’s satellite thermal control products include:

• CCHP, VCHP, LHP
  • Build-to-print, or custom designs
  • Embedded and External Mount
  • In-House and Custom Extrusions
  • 2D and 3D Configurations
  • Integration with Radiators
  • Aerospace Qualified Soldered Assemblies
• Accumulators

ACT Passes Surveillance Audit for ISO and AS9100 Quality Standards

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – December 19, 2014 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. announced today that it has successfully passed the surveillance audit for ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100C. The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets.

“Passing the stringent surveillance audit validates ACT’s effective QMS for providing mission critical products and services for the aerospace industry” stated John Hartenstine, ACT’s Vice President of Operations and Quality Assurance. “ACT is committed to providing our customers with the highest standard of professional practice and the highest quality of products and services. Quality and continuous improvement are our basic operating principles.”

ACT is Developing Heat Pipe Loops to Passively Cool Fiber Lasers

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – November 17, 2014. Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) announced that they are continuing to develop their Heat Pipe Loop (HPL) technology to cool fiber lasers for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The goal is to maintain the temperature of the fiber below a threshold value and in turn improve reliability, lifetime, and point stability. At the laser system level, improved fiber thermal management enables operation at overall higher powers. ACT’s heat pipe loop technology can passively handle high heat fluxes and dissipate the heat at a remote heat sink location, as needed.

Important to note is that ACT’s HPL technology can accommodate multiple evaporators. In previous work for the Department of Defense, ACT demonstrated a two evaporator system (evaporators connected in parallel). The dual-evaporator HPL was able to successfully handle transient thermal loads including non-uniform heat inputs applied to each of the evaporators.

ACT Delivers Aerospace Heat Pipes to Boeing for Integration on Four Satellites

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – October 8, 2014 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has delivered numerous Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHP’s) to Boeing’s satellite business in El Segundo, CA.

ACT’s aluminum-ammonia CCHPs are being integrated across four (4) unique satellite platforms in order to maintain proper operation for mission critical electronics and payloads. These heat pipes go through rigorous quality requirements to assure 30+ year operating life in space. ACT was qualified by Boeing as a supplier for CCHPs in 2013. Once launched, these parts will add to ACT’s space flight track record: currently over 4 million hours on orbit!

ACT Named Best Place to Work in PA in 2014 for Second Consecutive Year

Lancaster, September 22, 2014 – For the second year in a row, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has been named 49th on the list of the Best Places to Work in PA for 2014. The awards program, created in 2000, is one of the first statewide programs of its kind in the country. The program is a public/private partnership between Team Pennsylvania Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Pennsylvania State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Central Penn Business Journal.

Diane Baldassarre accepted the No. 49 small/medium award for Lancaster County-based Advanced Cooling Technologies.

Diane Baldassarre, Manager, Administration, was pleased to learn of ACT’s recognition. “Although we devote an organized effort into being a Best Place to Work in PA, it’s really the employees themselves that make this a great work environment. Aside from the activities and continuous efforts towards company improvement, the day to day attitudes, humor, and talent that our teammates bring to ACT are truly what make this place great.”

This survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Pennsylvania, who are benefiting the state’s economy and its workforce. Employers are categorized based upon the total number of employees they have in the United States, 25 to 249 employees and 250 or more employees.

To be considered for participation, companies had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements:
– Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business
– Be a publicly or privately held business
– Have a facility in Pennsylvania
– Have at least 25 employees working in Pennsylvania
– Be in business a minimum of one year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the 100 Best Places to Work in PA. The first part of this process was evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophies, systems and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process.Company rankings within the list were revealed December 4, 2014.

ACT was also named a Best Place to Work in PA for 2013, listed at number 66, and hopes to continue the upward climb for 2015.

ACT Expanding High Temperature Heat Pipe Offerings

Isothermal Furnace Liner

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – September 8, 2014. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc (ACT) announced today that they are expanding their high temperature heat pipe products and service offerings. For the past eight years ACT has had a successful product line of Isothermal Furnace Liners (IFLs). These devices are used for precision materials processing and contact and non-contact temperature calibration in the temperature range of up to 1,100⁰C. ACT is now offering high temperature heat pipes for many other unique applications.

Typically, high temperature heat pipes are used in the temperature range of 400⁰C to 1,100⁰C. Heat transfer rates of up to hundreds of kilowatts are typical of these heat pipes. “We have design and manufacturing experiences with numerous high temperature heat pipes of diverse form factors and utilizing a variety of working fluids, envelope materials, and wick structures”, noted Dr. Richard Bonner, Manager, of the Custom Products Group at ACT. Typical options include Cesium, Potassium, Sodium and Lithium for working fluids, Stainless Steels, Inconels, Haynes Alloys and Refractory metals as envelope materials with Screen Mesh and Sintered Powder wick structures. “We see a market need for these products across many established and emerging industries”, Bonner continued. High temperature heat pipes have been proven beneficial in applications including materials processing, temperature calibration, heat engine receivers, heat exchangers, heat recovery devices, hypersonic wing leading edges, thermoelectric generators, solar thermal, bio-mass reactors, nuclear power, and others. ACT is one of the very few companies that commercially manufactures heat pipes across this temperature spectrum, from cryogenic fluids to liquid metals. “With our strong heat pipe heritage and substantial high temperature heat pipe experience, ACT is uniquely qualified to satisfy the needs of these markets,” Bonner concluded.

ACT’s high temperature heat pipes are one of the product lines designed and manufactured within its Custom Products business unit. This business unit’s goal is to help customers solve thermal challenges by developing new products and applying existing technology to new applications. Feasibility assessments, prototyping, low volume custom manufacturing and testing are some of the products and services available.

If you have a need for high temperature thermal management, or would like to learn more, call an ACT representative today.

ACT Expanding Advanced Modeling Research Activities

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – August 11, 2014. Advanced Cooling Technologies announced today that it is continuing to expand its focus on research in advanced modeling through four recent wins of government funded R&D contracts, totaling over $600K. Over the last 5 years, ACT has been awarded $4 million in contracts in this research area.

ACT’s Advanced Modeling Research (AMR) focuses on developing a fundamental understanding of physical and chemical processes at the micron and sub-micron scale. These bottom-up multi-scale simulation approaches have the potential to link the atomistic length-scale to the product-level, offering highly accurate prediction tools. According to Dr. Tapan Desai, R&D Manager at ACT, “These awards demonstrate ACT’s depth and breadth in performing advanced modeling to develop prediction toolkits for ACT’s government and commercial customers. ACT’s advanced modeling capabilities directly benefits our customers by helping them gain a fundamental understanding of the “cause and effect” leading to high performance products with substantial cost savings”.

ACT’s reactive MD simulation of ablative rubber composite in oxygen atmosphere

For more information about these emerging technologies, visit our website https://www.1-act.com/advanced-technologies/advanced-modeling/

ACT’s simulation of crack propagation in composite lamina using meshless peridynamics approach.

Some notable examples of AMR projects include:

• Development of corrosion fatigue prediction tool based on peridynamics methodology
• Peridynamics based multiscale modeling of damage in thick composites
• Physics based model development for high power semiconductor lasers
• Electrical & thermally coupled fast device models for circuit simulation
• Boltzmann transport based modeling of semiconductor devices (GaN, SiC)
• Reactive molecular dynamics based design of  ablative TPS for space vehicles
• Development of atomistically-informed reduced chemical kinetics model for composite ablatives used in rocket motor engine

ACT Awarded New Navy BAA to Develop Advanced Cooling System for High Energy Lasers

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – July 1, 2014. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has been awarded a new $1.2M, three year contract to develop an efficient, lightweight, compact thermal storage and management subsystem for the Navy’s Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-The-Move (GBAD) program. The overall objective of the program is to develop a vehicle mounted air defense laser system to defeat low observable/ low radar cross section threats to the Marine Corps, specifically Unmanned Aerial Systems. The system proposed will remove the waste heat from the laser commensurate with available power and other engineering constraints. In the program, ACT will design, test and deliver a full-scale cooling system that will directly integrate with the High Energy Laser.

This new award is ACT’s fourth award in the area of direct energy weapon systems and demonstrates our core strength in heat transfer and thermal management for transient high power applications.

ACT Launches New Web-Based Selection Tool For Air-to-Air Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – June 17, 2014.  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), Lancaster, PA., has released an easy-to-use, registration free, web-based selection tool for its energy recovery line of Passive Heat Pipe Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers (HP-AAHX).

Heat Pipe Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers:
The ACT HP-AAHX system recovers energy from a building’s entering or leaving air ventilation system.  Depending upon geographical location, cold winter incoming air is tempered by the warm building air being exhausted.  In summer time, the hot entering air is cooled by the cool building air being exhausted. The ACT HP-AAHX system can be installed with entering and leaving air ducts situated side-by-side or separated. The ACT HP-AAHX system is passive and transfers energy with no moving parts. The ASHRAE 90.1 Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings calls out specific geographical regions where air-to-air energy recovery systems should be installed. Application factors like climate, air flow rates and the percentage of outside air drive the selection.  The ASHRAE 90.1 Standard application recommendations have been mandated by many local and municipal building codes.

Selecting a Heat Pipe Air-to-Air Heat Exchanger System:
This ACT AAHX Selection tool, located at www.1-ACT.com/HVAC/AAHX, is intended to provide the HVAC designer with the capability to perform a system design selection and to evaluate energy recover performance at various design points. It is also intended as a system design collaboration tool to clearly communicate project requirements, goals, and preliminary selections with ACT applications engineers.

Initial Selection of Design Conditions and Choice of Variables:

• SOLUTION PARAMETERS: There are two modes (SELECT) or (RATE).  In SELECT mode, the calculator will provide the number of rows and fins per inch required to meet your input conditions.  In the RATE mode, the calculator will provide the output temperatures of the air streams based on the input conditions.
• CALCULATION UNITS: Under PROJECT INFORMATION select either IP for ºF or SI for ºC.
• LIMIT FIN RANGE: Under SOLUTION PARAMETERS there is a slide bar.  Simply slide along the bar to select the range of interest.

User Selectable Variables:

• OUTSIDE AIR DB/WB: Enter (if known) or select the nearest city under the PROJECT INFORMATION tab.
• RETURN AIR DB/WB: Enter the conditioned space return air DB/WB values.  (75°F/62.5°F is a good starting point if the exact conditions are unknown).
• SUPPLY AIR DB / EFFECTIVENESS: In the SELECT mode, enter the desired supply air DB temperature or the desired effectiveness of the HP-AAHX. In the RATE mode, these values are calculated.
• SUPPLY AIRFLOW : Enter the supply side airflow (SCFM).  Note: Supply and return airflows values do not need to match.
• RETURN AIRFLOW: Enter the return side airflow (SCFM).
• FIN HEIGHT AND LENGTH: On the supply side, enter both the fin height and the finned length.  On the return side, enter only the finned length.  The fin height will be equal to the supply side.  The finned lengths do not need to match.

Documenting and Evaluating Your Work…There are two useful output options.  One is a “Print to PDF”, which will capture all of the on screen data in a PDF format.  The other is a “Submit to ACT” which again captures all of the screen data, including your optional project information. The PDF arrives at ACT where it can be evaluated and potential recommendations can be made for system design optimization. The final selection can be the basis for a quotation.   Please visit www.1-ACT.com/HVAC/AAHX and give this new selection tool a try! Call ACT to review your application or provide comments on the new HP-AAHX Selection Tool.

ACT’s Thermal Control Products Onboard NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory Satellite

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – May 12, 2014.  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) (www.1-ACT.com) announced today that its Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHP’s) and a CCHP embedded radiator panel have successfully provided thermal management onboard NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory that was launched on February 27, 2014 from the Tanegashima Space Center, Japan.  The externally mounted CCHP’s and radiator panel, procured through Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, Inc. (SGT), provide thermal management for the Avionics, Battery, and Star Tracker instruments onboard the satellite.  Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to provide rain and snow observations worldwide, advancing our understanding of Earth’s water and energy cycles.

“We are excited to be a part of this joint NASA/JAXA science mission, to better understand and track precipitation from space,” says John Hartenstine, ACT Vice President, Operations and Quality Assurance.

ACT’s Defense/Aerospace Group consists of personnel having diverse engineering and technical skills, making the group capable of solving some of the most demanding thermal management problems in spacecraft and aircraft. The group’s customer-focused approach is driving rapid growth and allowing ACT to quickly become the preferred supplier of flight-quality products, advanced research and development, and thermal management consulting services for the aerospace industry.  The group’s satellite thermal control products include:

• CCHP, VCHP, LHP
• Build-to-print, or custom designs
• Embedded and External Mount
• In-House and Custom Extrusions
• 2D and 3D Configurations
• Integration with Radiators
• Aerospace Qualified Soldered Assemblies
• Titanium Struts
• Accumulators

The group also provides complete thermal and mechanical design and analysis services for spacecraft Thermal Control Systems.

ACT Announces Multiple R&D Wins

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – April 28, 2014. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it is continuing its rapid thermal technology diversification through multiple R&D contract wins.  In 2013 ACT was awarded over 20 new contracts through government-funded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR’s) and Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) programs.  These contracts were awarded from several different government agencies, including DOE, NASA, DoD (MDA, Army, Air Force, Navy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, DARPA), and NSF.  These contracts will enable development of innovative thermal management technologies and perform R&D in new areas that include corrosion-resistant coatings and advanced modeling. According to Dr. William Anderson, Chief Engineer at ACT, “These multiple awards again demonstrate both the breadth of our innovative thinking on emerging thermal technologies and the confidence the many agencies have in our ability to develop it.” Some notable examples include:

• Compact Heat Exchangers for Directed Energy Weapons (Navy)
• Passive thermal management for cooling high power fiber lasers (MDA)
• High temperature heat pipes for space nuclear fission (NASA)
• Heat pipe based exhaust heat recovery systems for generator sets (ARMY)
• Waste heat recovery in rocket motors to aid in weight reduction (MDA)
• Passivation coatings for microchannel coolers to suppress erosion and corrosion (DARPA)
• Pumped two-phase cooling loops for managing thermal loads in high heat flux electronics and laser diodes (NSF)
• Increasing the energy density of liquid fuels by adding stabilized aluminum nanoparticles (Air Force)
• Advanced modeling including new activities in corrosion fatigue and composite material damage (Navy)
• Advanced radiator development for fission power thermal control (NASA)

In addition, ACT has continued to focus on energy-related applications in areas that include:

• LED Cooling
• Advanced thermal management for batteries and fuel cells
• Thermoelectric power generators for waste heat recovery systems
• The development of ultra-high temperature heat pipes for concentrated solar power (CSP) applications.

Many of ACT’s R&D programs are in collaboration with industrial and academic partners.  Some of the academic partners in the past year include: California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Texas Dallas, Lehigh University, Rowan University, North Carolina State University, Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, University of Texas Dallas, and Villanova University.

ACT Awarded Contract to Develop Pumped Two-Phase Cold Plate to Cool Lockheed Martin’s High Power Laser

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – March 25, 2014 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced today that it has been awarded a contract from Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training (LM-MST) to develop a two-phase pumped loop (TPPL) cold plate for the Robust Electric Laser Initiative (RELI) for ground based military vehicles.

Lockheed Martin’s spectral beam combining fiber lasers achieve very high electro-optical efficiencies and require uniform cold plate temperatures with low swap and high thermal efficiencies. ACT has, through a number of R&D programs in the past several years, developed considerable expertise and experience in designing and manufacturing pumped two-phase cold plates for a variety of challenging operating conditions including high heat fluxes, stringent temperature uniformity, multiple discrete heat sources, and military grade shock and vibration. Under the RELI program, ACT will design, build and deliver prototype cold plates and a test bed to Lockheed Martin for fiber laser modules.

ACT Develops ANCER™ Coatings for Corrosion Protection of Copper Microchannel Coolers

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – February 3, 2014 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) announced that they have developed ANCER™ coatings for corrosion and erosion protection of copper microchannel coolers (CMC).

Thermal oxidation test demonstrating the corrosion resistant properties of the ANCER™ coating. The uncoated copper ACT logo oxidizes changing color when exposed to temperatures from (a) ambient to (b) 250 °C and finally at (c) 400 °C, while the ANCER™  coated copper retains its color.

CMCs are used to remove waste heat from high heat flux devices such as laser diode arrays. CMCs have very short lifetimes, a few thousand hours in extreme conditions, due to current leakage and erosion corrosion effects from the high velocity, high purity de-ionized water coolant.  Loss of even a single CMC among an entire laser array can lead to costly replacement efforts and operational delays.

ACT’s new ANCER™ (Applied Nanoscale Corrosion Erosion Resistant) coatings, when applied to the interior surfaces of a CMC, can extend its life by 3 to 6 times.  Laboratory testing of complex geometry CMCs revealed that ANCER™ coated CMCs consistently outperformed gold plated CMCs, the current industry standard for corrosion/erosion protection, reducing the corrosion rate 260 times lower than gold.

ANCER™ is a hard coating that is robust enough to withstand the damaging effects of high speed, de-ionized water flow, yet thin enough to pose minimum impact to the excellent thermal conductivity of copper.  ACT has developed a vapor deposition process which allows the coating to be applied uniformly even on the most complex geometries with micro scale features such as inside a CMC.

The coating development was funded under a DARPA SBIR Phase I program. The test results were so positive that DARPA has recently funded a Phase II Option to help commercialize the technology.  “With the ANCER™ coatings, we have developed a solution for a problem that has been plaguing the laser diode community for years.” says Dr. Tapan Desai, Manager of R&D for ACT’s Defense/Aerospace Products Group, “We are grateful for the support and confidence DARPA has provided in helping us commercialize this technology”.  Mr. Scott Garner, Vice President of the Defense/Aerospace Products Group, adds “the response from the commercial sector been great. We are now providing coating services to our customers.  It’s very exciting to be offering new technology solutions to solve a well known industry problem.”

ACT Launches Web-Based Selection Tool For Wrap-Around Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers

Screen capture of WAHX selection software

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – January 6, 2014 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), Lancaster, PA., has released an easy-to-use web-based selection tool for its energy recovery line of Wrap-Around Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers (WAHX). WAHXs change the sensible heat ratio of an active cooling coil (DX or Chilled Water) resulting in passive pre-cooling with enhanced dehumidification while delivering free, passive reheat.  The WAHX selection tool calculates the number of heat pipe rows and the fin count required to meet the input design conditions.  The selection tool also provides the tons of cooling saved relative to a system without a WAHX and the free, passive reheat savings.    

Benefits of the WAHX System
ACT’s WAHX product is typically installed in air handlers that draw the majority of the supply air from outside the building, for example dedicated outdoor air systems (DOAS). A DOAS system, or any system with a high percentage of outside air, is burdened with higher latent and sensible loads compared to an air handler that recycles the majority of the air. The WAHX provides enhanced dehumidification by changing the sensible heat ratio of the active cooling coil.  The first section of the WAHX precools the incoming air stream.  Accordingly, more of the active cooling coil capacity can be utilized for latent cooling (moisture removal).  The second section of the WAHX, the reheat coil, returns the energy extracted from the air stream by the precool coil, providing passive, free reheat for applications that currently use electric or natural gas reheat.   The WAHX does add a relatively small amount of additional static pressure drop to the air handler, which is also provided by the selection tool.

WAHX Selection Tool Capabilities
This WAHX Selection tool is intended to provide the designer with the capability to perform a preliminary design selection and to evaluate performance at various design conditions. It is also intended to be a tool to communicate engineering requirements and design targets to ACT for additional calculations and/or for preparing a quotation.  

There are two useful output options for the selection tool. One is a “Print to PDF”, which will capture all of the on screen data in a savable PDF format.  The other is a “Submit to ACT” which will capture all of the screen data, including the project information that the user enters, and sends it to an ACT engineer for further assistance or quotation.   Please visit www.1-ACT.com/HVAC/WAHX and give this new selection tool a try.

ACT Receives Best Paper Award at AIAA IECEC Conference

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – December 9, 2013 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. announced today that it has been awarded the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Best Paper Award in Aerospace Power Systems at the International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC) for the paper entitled Long-Lived Venus Lander Thermal Management System Design. The authors from ACT were Rebecca Hay, Andrew Slippey, Calin Tarau and William Anderson.  Lead author, Rebecca Hay, presented the paper at the IECEC Conference in July, 2012 and received the award at the awards lunch. The paper was based on research from a project funded through the Small Business Innovation Research office with the NASA/Glenn Research Center to develop a Thermal Management System using Variable Conductance Heat Pipes for a science mission to Venus.

“I am excited that the paper was so well received,” stated Rebecca Hay, a Research and Development Engineer in the Aerospace Products Group. “It was an honor to attend the lunch to accept the award and be recognized for the hard work that went into the paper and the project.”

ACT Passes 2013 Surveillance Audit for ISO and AS9100 Quality Standards

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – November 20, 2013 – Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT), Inc. announced today that it has successfully passed the surveillance audit for ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100C with no findings.  The Quality Management Systems (QMS) audit, performed by Intertek Testing Services, covers the design and manufacturing of ACT’s products and services for the aviation, space and defense industries along with all other terrestrial markets.

“The surveillance audit covered roughly one-half of the Quality Management Systems with the second half audit scheduled for 2014,” stated Patrick Rozzi, ACT’s acting Quality Assurance Manager.  “We are pleased with the results and appreciate the efforts of the ACT team to maintain this rigorous QMS.  This demonstrates our commitment to deliver the highest quality thermal products and services, on-time, and with unmatched customer service.”

ACT Named Best Place to Work in PA in 2013

Lancaster, September 20, 2013 –  Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has been named one of the Best Places to Work in PA for 2013. The awards program, created in 2000, is one of the first statewide programs of its kind in the country. The program is a public/private partnership between Team Pennsylvania Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Pennsylvania State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Central Penn Business Journal.

This survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Pennsylvania, who are benefiting the state’s economy and its workforce. Employers are categorized based upon the total number of employees they have in the United States, 25 to 249 employees and 250 or more employees.

“We know that our employees are our most valuable asset and we are constantly looking for ways to improve our work environment”, according Diane Baldassarre, Administration Manager.  “It’s gratifying to be recognized for this important award. This is truly a team effort involving everyone here.”

To be considered for participation, companies had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements:

• Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business
• Be a publicly or privately held business
• Have a facility in Pennsylvania
• Have at least 25 employees working in Pennsylvania
• Be in business a minimum of one year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the 100 Best Places to Work in PA. The first part of this process was evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophies, systems and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process.

ACT Establishes Radiography Inspection Facility

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – September 11, 2013 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT)  (www.1-ACT.com) announced today that its Aerospace Products Group has established an in-house radiography inspection facility including all the required equipment and infrastructure. This facility will be primarily used to support ACT’s production of spacecraft thermal control heat pipe products. ACT personnel have successfully completed certification to Level I Radiographic Non Destructive Testing per NAS 410.

“This continuous improvement effort increases manufacturing efficiencies for mission critical aluminum/ammonia Constant Conductance Heat Pipes and Loop Heat Pipes for satellite thermal control, which will lead to improved cost competitiveness and reduction in lead time and risk,” says Mike DeChristopher, a Production Lead Engineer at ACT.

ACT’s Aerospace Products Group consists of personnel having diverse engineering and technical skills, making the group capable of solving some of the most demanding thermal management problems in spacecraft and aircraft. The group’s customer-focused approach is driving rapid growth and allowing ACT to quickly become a trusted supplier of flight-quality products, advanced research and development, and thermal management consulting services for the aerospace industry. To date, the group has manufactured and supplied heat pipe products to a dozen satellites currently on orbit.  The group’s satellite thermal control products include:

• CCHP, VCHP, LHP
  • Build-to-print, or custom designs
  • Embedded and External Mount
  • In-House and Custom Extrusions
  • 2D and 3D Configurations
  • Integration with Radiators
  • Aerospace Qualified Soldered Assemblies
• Titanium Struts
• Accumulators

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. Helps CertainTeed Building Products Plant Cool its Way to Better Quality

CertainTeed Drywall Manufacturing Plant, Moundsville, WV

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – August 15, 2013 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT).Tucked away in the West Virginia Mountains next to the slow flowing Ohio River is the CertainTeed drywall facility.  It is a  quarter mile long, state of the art,manufacturing plant.The Moundsville, WV plant is designed to flow drywall sheet materials up to 500 feet per minute.  The process pours, shapes, flattens, and dries the product to its final form. Any part of the production process that produces waste is recycled.  Even the materials that make up the product are derived from local waste and recycled material streams. A major element in the manufacturing process is water, which must be controlled within a tight temperature range. Process water that is too hot or too cold results in product inconsistencies and poor quality.

The water driven off during the drying process is condensed and the temperature is adjusted by high capacity cooling towers. Unfortunately, during the hot summer, the temperature of the reclaimed water exceeds the maximum allowable range, resulting in unscheduled and unwanted plant shutdowns.  To prevent this, supplemental cooling capacity was required to lower the process water temperature.

ACT’s 600,000 BTUH Radiator Cooling System

Application: ACT was contacted to evaluate and size a large, direct drive, fan cooled radiator system that could be placed in series with the building products process water loop.  ACT provided performance predictions as a function of flow rate, incoming process water temperature, outdoor temperature, and fan speed.  The water is continuously pumped through the radiator at a fixed flow rate between 17 and 21 gpm. The temperature of the water leaving the fan cooled radiator is controlled by varying the speed of the fan.  A variable frequency drive was used to modulate the fan motor speed.  The process control parameters are monitored and controlled by local PLCs and coordinated through the plant SCADA system. The fan cooled radiator system was required to cool the process water to approximately 60°F, which translates into a cooling capacity of over 600,000 BTU/hr. of cooling.

Design Scope:

The fan controlled radiator was engineered to address the process parameters.  All metal surfaces were formed from 304 stainless steel.  The radiator coils were E-coated to prevent corrosion. A direct drive 54 inch diameter, 10.9° pitch, high speed fan was driven by a ten horsepower AC motor.  An Ethernet based temperature sensor is used to provide input to a PLC.  The PLC communicates via Allen Bradley Device Net to vary the frequency of the 460VAC motor drive coupled to the fan cooled radiator’s 10 HP motor.

Conception to Installation and Start-Up:

Installing the ACT Radiator system on its mounting frame

ACT provided support throughout the entire project ranging from the initial design to predictive performance modeling to field installation and startup support. ACT also designed and built the custom three foot high, galvanized steel mounting base and the AC drive motor control cabinet. The final deliverable included full system documentation including startup and maintenance recommendations.

Project Results:

The plant engineering and facilities teams are pleased with the initial performance of the radiator system. Early in the conceptual stage, a $400,000 chiller system was proposed.  The chiller system was expensive from both initial cost and operating cost points of view.  The fan cooled radiator solution from ACT was chosen over the chiller system as the solution with the highest value, value being defined as function / cost.  A cost avoidance of nearly $400K was realized. Thomas Oei, Sr. Project Manager for CertainTeed commented on the project:

“An effective, innovative and complete solution for our cooling need was provided by ACT.  Their continual support from project conception to commissioning resulted in exceeding our expectations as well as the original equipment specifications.”

The project was completed one week ahead of schedule and 15% under budget.  It was in full compliance with CertainTeed’s World Class Manufacturing (WCM) practices, in large part because of the complete documentation and vendor information provided.  CertainTeed also achieved “vertical startup”, which is one of the aims of WCM.  Vertical startup means the switch is turned on and it works, and continues to work. Thomas Oei continued

“In the opinion of CertainTeed, ACT was able to work well with our local contractors and plant staff to ensure the successful equipment integration into the plant automation systems.”

The additional process control achieved through the implementation of the supplemental fan cooled radiator will result in less downtime, improved quality, and will allow CertainTeed to do innovative new product development that may require cooler process water temperatures.

ACT Heat Pipes Reach 1 Million Hours On-Orbit Milestone

Lancaster, Pennsylvania- April 10, 2013, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) (www.1-ACT.com) announced today that its Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHP’s) have successfully reached over 1 million total hours on-orbit, providing thermal management on-board numerous satellites.  Recent launches onboard Orbital Sciences Corporation-built (NYSE: ORB) Intelsat 23, Star One C3, Mexsat Bicentenario and Azerspace/Africasat-1a have pushed ACT’s flight heritage over this significant milestone.

“This is a significant milestone for our CCHP flight heritage”, says John Hartenstine, Manager of ACT’s Aerospace Products Group.  “We were excited with our first launch placing CCHPs into orbit in November, 2009.  Since that time the Aerospace Products team has supplied over 400 heat pipes to the aerospace community for spacecraft integration, many of which are currently operating on-orbit.”

ACT’s Aerospace Products Group consists of personnel having diverse engineering and technical skills, making the group capable of solving some of the most demanding thermal management problems in spacecraft and aircraft. The group’s customer-focused approach is driving rapid growth and allowing ACT to quickly become a trusted supplier of flight-quality products, advanced research and development, and thermal management consulting services for the aerospace industry.  The group’s satellite thermal control products include:

• CCHP, VCHP, LHP
  • Build-to-print, or custom designs
  • Embedded and External Mount
  • In-House and Custom Extrusions
  • 2D and 3D Configurations
  • Integration with Radiators
  • Aerospace Qualified Soldered Assemblies
• Titanium Struts
• Accumulators

The group also provides complete thermal and mechanical design and analysis services for spacecraft Thermal Control Systems.

ACT’s Technical Services delivering thermal solutions across many industries

Lancaster, Pennsylvania – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. announced today that their Technical Services Group, which provides thermal management design and analysis solutions, is seeing growth in a variety of industries.  “We’ve seen a real uptick in areas such as medical, lighting, and alternative energy” said Pete Ritt, Vice President, Technical Services.  ACT’s customers are developing more powerful and compact devices where traditional heat sink solutions are no longer viable.  These emerging industry applications seek ACT’s broad based thermal management technology expertise, which includes advanced heat pipes, liquid cooling, pumped two-phase, and thermal storage systems.  Because of ACT’s experience in so many of the different thermal technologies, they can provide an unbiased and accurate assessment of real solutions.  Rich Bonner, Manager of Custom Products, added “Having modeling, manufacturing, and measurement capabilities under one roof provides a great value to our customers.  The integration of these capabilities ensures that our design recommendations are well grounded and within established manufacturing capabilities.”  ACT also has a very robust Research and Development effort.  “Our R&D core ensures we are at the forefront of emerging thermal technologies.  Our customers appreciate that depth of expertise,” concluded Ritt.

If you are facing a thermal challenge and are seeking the right performance and cost effective solutions, call an ACT representative today at.  For more valuable information about our product and service offerings please check out our website: www.1-ACT.com