Passive Two-Phase Thermal Management System for Hall Thruster

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) proposes to develop and mature a lightweight, compact, and highly effective passive two-phase thermal management system (TMS) for extremely high power-density commercial magnetically-shielded Hall thrusters, aiming to enable NASA for its future cislunar and deep space missions. In Phase I, ACT performed a comprehensive heat pipe design trade study and developed two unique three-dimensional alkali metal heat pipe prototypes for 20 kW H9 Hall thrusters. Both heat pipe prototypes outperform the heat transfer requirement obtained in finite-element simulations by up to five times and can operate in any orientation irrespective of the presence or absence of electromagnetic fields. Passive two-phase HPs are integrated with a small hot radiator, being in radiative heat transfer with downstream while a relatively larger cold radiator attached to the back of the H9 Hall thruster, protects the temperature-sensitive components from overheating. nbsp;Based on FEA, ACTrsquo;s innovative passive two-phase TMS could decrease traditional cold radiator of a 20 kW H9 thruster by up to 40% in size and 1 kg in mass. In Phase II, followed by continuing to further optimize and mature the passive two-phase TMS, ACT will integrate its passive two-phase TMS on UMich. H9 Hall thrusters and experimentally measure thrust, efficiency, specific impulse, current oscillation etc. inside a large vacuum chamber. The final deliverable will be a passive two-phase TMS, consisting of down-selected heat pipes, hot and cold radiators.