Compact Condensers Enabled by Additive Manufacturing

Thermal management using two-phase cooling systems offers significant advantages in terms of size, weight, and power reduction. These size reductions are mainly attributable to the evaporation part of the process, where heat transfer coefficients can be as high as 100 kW m-2 K-1. This is not the case for condensation, which can typically transfer lower heat fluxes at the same temperature difference, often making condensers the largest components in two-phase cooling systems. The recent advances in additive manufacturing offer a quantum step over conventional enhancement techniques in the ability to fabricate carefully tailored and optimized, continuously variable, complex geometries with potentially thinner walls. These characteristics are today more readily obtainable and can help maximize the potential for reducing condenser size while transferring high heat fluxes. In this proposal, West Coast Solutions (WCS), Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC), and Elementum 3D propose a novel, compact water-cooled shell-and-tube condenser design that can be readily fabricated with current additive manufacturing techniques.