Lancaster, Pennsylvania – November 27, 2006 – Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc.’s Aerospace Products Group continues the progress toward providing space qualified heat pipe products and technologies.
Since the launch of the CCHP (Constant Conductance Heat Pipe) and VCHP (Variable Conductance Heat Pipe) products in May 2006, ACT has made continuous progress in both business and technical developments. In particular, ACT continues to demonstrate the capability of manufacturing CCHPs with complex geometries and tight dimensional tolerances; and, to demonstrate the quality and reliability of the manufacturing processes through CCHP life testing at elevated temperatures. The figure below shows the temperature profiles of the condenser section of a life test CCHP during the NCG check after 1,720 hours of operation. The heat pipe shows no sign of NCG at -40°C, -50°C, -60°C and -65°C. ACT is continuing the life test and periodical NCG check test to demonstrate real-time, long life performance.
In addition to the product development and manufacturing efforts, ACT is also actively developing advanced thermal technologies for the next generation aerospace applications. ACT was recently notified by NASA of the award of three SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) projects. These projects will develop technologies for diverse applications, including pressure controlled heat pipes (PCHP) for thermal control of space optical/laser systems, high temperature VCHPs for Stirling radioisotope power systems, and vapor compressor driven hybrid two-phase loops (HTPL) for lunar surface systems.