Passive High Performance Heat Storage and Dissipation Technology for Transient High Power Thermal Management

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT), supported by the University of Nevada-Reno (UNR), proposes to develop a passive, high performance heat storage and dissipation technology for high power electronics and directed energy system applications. The proposed technology incorporates heat pipes for acquisition and dissipation of high heat fluxes and metal hydrides for storage of large transient heat loads. The performance target is to remove heat fluxes in excess of 100W/cm2 for 300 seconds while maintaining a temperature variation within 25°C. The technology is modular and scalable to areas up to 100cm2. The Phase I objective is to verify the feasibility of the proposed concept in managing transient high heat fluxes. This will be achieved through system analysis and proof-of-concept device demonstration. In Phase II, full-scale prototype devices will be fabricated and tested in representative environments. Phase III will integrate the technology in military and commercial directed energy and high power electronic systems. Successful development of this passive, high performance heat storage and dissipation technology will provide substantial improvements over the current state of the art phase change material thermal storage technologies, in terms of heat storage capacity, volume, mass, isothermality and transient response time.