Pulsating Heat Pipes are a complementary technology to Space Copper Water Heat Pipes (SCWHPs). While they generally can’t carry as much power and need a minimum temperature difference to start up, the lack of a wick structure and alternate working fluid selections provide many applicable use cases for spaceflight.
5 Benefits of Using PHPS for Space and Orbital Systems Applications
The validity of using PHPs over alternate available enhanced thermal technologies – such as SCWHPs, HiK™ Plates/Cards, Constant Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs), etc. – will depend on your specific application and heat transfer requirements. Recent operational successes/heritage in space have enabled the PHPs to be utilized in the challenging realm of spaceflight thermal control due to their:
- Low profile spreaders, enabled by wickless mini channel designs.
- Performance to transfer high power densities with low delta T.
- Working fluid selection to prevent freezing in LEO operations.
- Coverage of the fluid channels to pick up heat from many discrete locations.
- Increased flexibility in spacecraft testing, operating in any orientation.
Why ACT?
As the demand for PHPs increases, ACT is positioned to meet design, qualification and high-quality production requirements. Developed through internal and government funding, ACT has spent many years developing in-house modeling tools to reduce design cycles and improve performance predictability.
Through two decades of experience growing our manufacturing footprint for a wide range of products and applications, we have the manufacturing know-how and supply chain to meet production and quality requirements, paired with a wealth of experience in identifying and designing optimal thermal control systems for SWaP, cost, and lead time.
