Evolution of Pultruded Carbon-Phenolic Heat Pipe with Integral Wick

"Increasingly demanding requirements for satellite electronics make it more difficult to effectively dissipate heat. One attractive means for managing spacecraft thermal environments is use of heat pipes to passively transfer heat to radiator panels. Weightis a major consideration, so composite materials are desired to replace metallic components. Carbon-carbon composites are used in radiator panels. Concerns for matching CTE of the radiator and heat pipes leads to a desire to make heat pipes fromcarbon/carbon as well.KCI proposes to expand previous developments of component technologies needed to produce carbon-phenolic heat pipes (a precursor for carbon/carbon) using pultrusion-based processing, a highly automated composite production method. KCI has demonstrated theability to fabricate high quality carbon-phenolic tubes with finally detailed internal wicking structures. KCI's preliminary process required a large amount of labor, resulting in high cost and quality variations. This proposal suggests development ofautomated technology for placement of carbon fiber to produce heat pipe wall and wicking structures in a single processing step, forming the foundation for Phase II tailoring of composite architecture, use of mesophase pitch matrix and potentially,pultruding the entire thermal radiator with embedded heat pipe. Lockheed Martin will support KCI with technical inputs. Many applications can potentially benefit from the technolog