Flexible Oscillating Heat Pipe for Microelectronics Thermal Management

Major defense contractors with an interest in cooling of microelectronics chassis, of ThermAvant have requested (1) OHPs with the ability to be flexible upon installation to overcome tolerance stack up, (2) vibration tolerant solutions which do not transmit vibration from heat acquisition to heat rejection, (3) deployment mechanisms which can handle 100+ cycles of bending, and (4) thermal transport in 3D from electronics to rejection in a different plane within the electronics packaging.  DARPA funding vehicle would enable TAT to address these four challenges with an OHP with rigid heat input and heat rejection but with a flexible adiabatic section between them.  In addition to meeting these specific needs, OHP has the following advantages over competitive approaches which may address these needs:Improved gravity independence when compared with CCHPs and Vapor ChambersHigher power density thermal transportImproved isothermalityStructurally integrated (on the rigid metal heat input and heat rejection portions)Base Period will include (1) exploration of fiber optic capillary glass tubing to serve as flexible adiabatic section as it will enable significant mechanical cycles, can handle significant internal pressure (103ksi with 8x factor of safety) and (2) parallel exploration of Nitinol shape memory alloy (SMA) tubing to serve as flexible adiabatic section as it is super-elastic and can survive many bend cycles with a very tight bend radius; both leveraged to serve as thermal straps.  Fiber optic tubing will be hermetically bonded with glass.  SMA tubing will be hermetically bonded with nickel / titanium brazing.  Option period will (1) leverage one or both of these technologies in deployable radiator application space and (2) extend fiber optic glass tubing approach to ceramic OHP evaporator and condenser to better serve microelectronics applications by reducing thermal resistance by leveraging ceramic (e.g. AlN) dielectric and low thermal expansion coefficient (CTE) properties.