Miniature Loop Heat Pipe with Multiple Evaporators and Multiple Condensers

Cooling electronic components in the space environment still remains a challenge for thermal engineers. In the current design practice, copper straps are used to transfer the waste heat from various high-power dissipating components to the side walls of the electronic box. Another heat transport device then collects the waste heat from the box mounting plate and carries it the space radiators for rejection. As the heat load of next generation electronics increases at a very fast rate, a more efficient heat transfer mechanism at the box level must be developed. Loop Heat Pipes (LHP) become popular heat transport devices for space-based thermal control systems for they are highly reliable and maintenancefree. Almost all LHPs in service at the present time contain one capillary pump. Thus one LHP provides only a "single point" heat acquisition. In addition, when redundancy is required for the mission long lifetime, many LHPs are therefore needed to provide adequate cooling for the electronic components. Miniature LHPs with multiple evaporators and multiple condensers will solve the aforementioned cooling problem without complicating the integration process.