Buswork Integrated Cooling System (BICS)

Paragon Space Development Corporation (Paragon) will develop and prove a compact, low power Buswork Integrated Cooling System (BICS). BICS maintains a constant temperature, and has great flexibility for higly variable heat acquisition, through two-phase heat transport. This technology integrates the coldplate into a laminated buswork typical of tightly integrated battery modules. This laminated configuration fully isolates the cooling system from the busbar conductors via a dielectric working fluid and busbar intraplanar electrical insulation. Two-phase heat transport has the benefit of flow rates at least an order of magnitude smaller than single phase, is readily able transport heat from high flux and transient sources, and can maintain a constant temperature at the evaporator (coldplate or heat exchanger), and condenser over a wide range of heat loads. The system posed is highly flexible through the parallel placement of heat acquisition components, and is insensitive to the installed orientation and configuration of the battery hardware. Paragons proposed solution builds upon the significant research and development experience of our Principal Investigator in this field. Phase I modelling and simulation verifies the effectiveness of the proposed system; while design, build, and demonstration of the BICS validates the concept and its success in this application.