Thermal Control of Electronic Equipment by Using a Mini Hybrid Capillary Pumped Loop (MH-CPL)

Flight hardware technology evolution demands increasing electronic components density and electronic components power density in Printed Circuit Board´s (PCB), leading to higher temperature to the nearby components and local over-temperatures in the junction semiconductor. This has an impact to the reliability of the Electronic Semiconductor Devices (ESD) increasing the errors in digital components and forcing to reduce the current in analogue components. To overcome such a high power density, a Mini Hybrid Capillary Pumped Loop (MH-CPL) has been developed in the frame of ESA Technology Research Program to prove its heat evacuation capability on Electronic Semiconductor Devices allowing better PCB efficiency. The MH-CPL concept has been defined based on an extensive literature and patents review and it has been validated through simulation in EcosimPro. The developed concept premises have been applied to the design of a MH-CPL Engineering Model (EM), currently within manufacturing process. The EM consists of a two-phase heat transport device with four evaporators, one remote compensation chamber (RCC), common liquid and vapor lines and one condenser. A characterization test campaign in ambient and in vacuum has been defined. Main performance tests have also been simulated via EcosimPro. Predictions’ results are presented and discussed in the paper.