Custom Thermal, Fluid, and Mechanical Systems

Pressure Controlled Heat Pipe (PCHP) Temperature Calibrating Furnace and Controls

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) designs, develops and fabricates custom fluid, thermal, and mechanical systems for customers.  ACT will handle all of the design and engineering, and deliver robust turnkey solutions.  Once the design is complete we can either provide detailed plans for customer sourcing or quote fabrication and installation of the entire system.  ACT has developed custom systems for the applications that include:

• Single Phase and Two Phase Thermal/Fluid Systems
• Vapor Compression Systems with Integrated Thermal Storage
• Temperature Calibration Systems
• Flammability and Hot Surface Ignition Test Systems
• Thermal/Optical Test Systems
• Thermal/Compressibility Test Systems
• Avionic Box Testing System

Some examples of the custom fluid, thermal, and mechanical systems fabricated at ACT:

• Custom Single Phase Cooling Systems Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. offers a complete line of liquid cooling solutions for all markets, handling all of the design and engineering, and delivering robust turnkey solutions
  • Single Phase Liquid Cold Plate Test System: A test system was developed to provide a full thermal and hydraulic performance evaluation of single-phase cold plates with different internal designs, to enable the down selection of the optimal cold plate for a given set of operating conditions.
  • ISS JEMS Module Fluid Control Loop Simulator: A Fluid Control Unit was developed to simulate the JEMS thermal fluid test loop on the ISS.  The unit provides temperature, pressure and flow control.  A vacuum pump and accumulator allows the user to evacuate and charge their unit.
• Pumped Two Phase Fluid/Thermal Systems: Pumped Two Phase (P2P) systems have a number of advantages over pumped single phase systems, including lower flow rates and pumping power, cooling high heat fluxes,  and maintaining an isothermal surface over large cold plate areas.   Custom P2P systems  that ACT has designed and fabricated include:
  • Pumped Two-Phase Cooling for Thermal Management of High Heat Flux Devices: This system is used to test different high heat flux cold plates, at heat fluxes in excess of 300 W/cm².
  • Pumped Two-Phase Isothermal Cooling Test System: A second custom two phase system was used to test two large 60 x 60 cm (2 ft. x 2 ft.) cold plates, maintaining a 25°C ± 2°C temperature across each plate.
  • High Heat Flux Spray Impingement Cooling System: A spray cooling system capable of removing 1000W/cm² from an exposed CPU, taking single jet impingement data, with three different fluids (HFE-7000, methanol, and water).
• Vapor Compression Systems with Optional Thermal Storage ACT has developed efficient, compact vapor compression systems (VCS) that can handle very high pulsed heat loads and/or maintain highly isothermal cold plates.  Some or our systems incorporate thermal energy storage within the system, which in turn allows the system Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) to be substantially reduced.
• PCHP Calibration Furnace: ACT has developed a Pressure Controlled Heat Pipe (PCHP) temperature calibrator suitable for government calibration institutions. This product 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.
• Heat Pipe Blackbody Cavities: ACT designs and builds custom heat pipe black body systems including the heating/cooling elements and temperature controllers, which are used to calibrate thermal radiation sensors
• Clothing Flammability Test System for Evaluating Protective Clothing near Jet Engines: A custom test apparatus has been developed for the Air Force to evaluate the thermal behavior of fabrics near jet engines, subject to both convective and radiative heat loads, as well as open flames.  The automated test hardware was developed to allow for testing against established test standards, including ISO 17492, ASTM D 4108-82, and ASTM F 1939-99a.
• Hot Surface Ignition (HSI) (Flammability Test System):  The hot surface ignition (HSI) of flammable liquids aboard aircraft presents risk to the aircraft and personnel.  ACT has developed a custom hot surface ignition test apparatus to provide a systematic evaluation of the key parameters that lead to HSI events.

Hot Surface Ignition Test Cart

• Thermal Optical Test System for Laser Diode Thermal Management was developed to evaluate the thermal and hydraulic performance of microchannel coolers used in laser diode thermal management.  It also enables the optical characterization of emitted laser light for an additional alternative performance evaluation.