Session: 12-13-01: Heat Transfer in Electronic Equipment I

Paper Number: 166100

Thermal Management of Small Satellites’ Battery Module Using Micro/Nano-Enhanced PCM-Based Heat Sinks 

Thermal Management of Small Satellites’ Battery Module Using Micro/Nano-Enhanced-PCM-Based Heat Sinks

Andrew Cisco, Dominic Mckinney, Izaiah Smith, Billy Moore, Mehdi Kabir

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering, Alfred University, 1 Saxon Drive, Alfred, NY.

 

Phase-change materials (PCMs) are considered one of the most promising substances to be engaged passively to thermal management and storage systems for spacecrafts where it is critical to diminish the overall mass of on-board thermal storage system while minimizing temperature fluctuations upon drastic changes of the environmental temperature within the orbit stage. This makes the development of effective thermal management systems more challenging since there is no atmosphere in outer space to take advantage of natural and forced convective heat transfer.

Phase-change materials can store or release a tremendous amount of thermal energy within a small volume in the form of latent heat of fusion in the phase-change processes of melting and solidification from solid to liquid or conversely during which temperature remains almost constant. However, the existing phase-change materials (excluding the low melting point alloys, LMPAs) pose very low thermal conductivity, leading to an undesirable increase in total thermal resistance and consequently a slow thermal response time. This often turns into a system bottleneck from the thermal performance perspective.

To address the above aforementioned drawback, the present study aims to design and develop various heat sinks featured by nano-structured graphitic foams (i.e., carbon foam), expanded graphite (EG), and open-cell copper foam (OCCF) infiltrated with a conventional paraffin wax phase-change material with a melting temperature of around 37 °C. This study focuses on the use of passive thermal management techniques to develop efficient heat sinks to maintain the electronics circuits’ and battery module’s temperature within the thermal safety limit for small spacecrafts and satellites such as the Pumpkin and OPTIMUS battery modules designed for CubeSats with a cross-sectional area of approximately 4˝×4˝. In the present study, thermal response times for various heat sinks are assessed in atmospheric conditions as well as in a vacuum chamber to simulate space conditions. The performances of the micro/nano-enhanced heat sinks will then be compared with that of a base heat sink composed merely of PCM without micro and nano enhancement under the same operating conditions. In addition to the effect of porous materials making up the heat sinks, the impact of pore size of different foams on the thermal performance of the heat sinks is aimed to be investigated.

Presenting Author: Mehdi Kabir Alfred University

Presenting Author Biography: Assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Alfred University

Authors:

Mehdi Kabir Alfred University
Andrew Cisco Alfred University
Dominic Mckinney Alfred University
Izaiah Smith Alfred University
Billy Moore Alfred University