Development of a High-Performance Heat Sink for the International Space Station: Hydraulic and Thermostructural Analysis

The possibility of exploiting an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) technique of heat transfer enhancement for obtaining a high-performance heat sink is investigated in this work. The proposed heat sink is an evolution of a water-cooled cold plate (CP), designed by Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DBA) for the International Space Station (ISS). The dielectric liquid considered for the design process is perfluorohexane, also known as FC-72, a widely-used refrigerant, space-qualified, and present on the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) of the ISS. The mechanical interfaces for accommodation on the ISS have been taken into account, along with the dynamic loads typical of the critical launch phase, defined by a given power spectral density (PSD) curve. The thermostructural behavior of the CP has been evaluated by the finite element method (FEM). The numerical analysis has been validated on the reference DBA model, whose performance data are available. The hydraulic results are based on simple calculations of pressure drops in ducts, arranged in series or in parallel. The step-by-step conceptual evolution to the final design solution is described in detail. Also, it is explained how to employ the global thermal resistance reduction for decreasing the pumping power, increasing the heat load or reducing volume and weight of the CP.