With the continuous application of high-power electronic equipment in aircraft, highly efficient heat transfer technology has been emphasized for airborne applications. In this paper, a thermal management system based on an antifreeze liquid cooling loop and a vapor compression refrigeration loop is presented for high-power airborne equipment in a helicopter. The simulation models of the thermal management system are built in order to study its control strategy for the changing flight conditions. The antifreeze-refrigerant evaporator and air-refrigerant condenser are specially validated with the experimental data. A dual feedforward proportion integration differentiation and expert control algorithm are adopted in the inlet temperature of the cold plate and sub-cooling control of the refrigerant by regulating the compressor speed and the fan speed, respectively. A preheating strategy for antifreeze is set up to decrease its flow resistance in cold day conditions. The control strategy for the thermal management system is finally built based on the above control methods. In this paper, two extreme conditions are discussed, including cold and hot days. Both the simulation results show that the superheated, sub-cooling and antifreeze inlet temperature of the cold plate can be controlled at 3 to8 °C, −10 to −3 °C and 18 to22 °C, respectively. Under the same changing flight envelope, the coefficient of performance of the vapor compression refrigeration loop is relatively stable on the cold day, which is about 6, while it has a range of 2.58–4.9 on the hot day.

In this paper, the liquid cooling and vapor compression refrigeration system based on an Antifreeze-R134a Heat Exchanger (ARHEx) was applied to the thermal management system for high-power avionics in helicopters. The heat transfer performance of the ARHEx was studied. An experimental prototype of ARHEx was designed and established. A series of experiments was carried out with a ground experimental condition. A heat transfer formula for the antifreeze side in the ARHEx was obtained by means of the coefficient of Nusselt number with experimental analysis. The performance of heat transfer and pressure drop for the refrigerant side of the ARHEx was deduced for the given condition.