Affordable Composite Material Heat Pipes

The objective of the program is to demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating the development of affordable, lightweight heat pipes that are made entirely from composite material. Composite material heat pipe technology will help to maintain spacecraft thermal control and will be compatible with attaching to the composite structural panels.The Phase I program has five technical tasks oriented towards demonstrating the feasibility of fabricating polymer composite material into the proper axial groove heat pipe geometry. Task 1 involved establishing the heat pipe thermal and structural requirements. Tasks 2 and 3 are associated to fabricating the desired axial groove geometry in small test segments and measuring material properties such as thermal conductivity, tensile strength, modulus, weight and the coefficient of thermal expansion. Tasks 4 and 5 will demonstrate composite heat pipe fabrication and verify its pressure strength through proof and burst testing.