Multi-evaporator hybrid loop heat pipe for small spacecraft thermal management

A review of thermal performance in multiple evaporators loop heat pipe

“…Yun et al [10] provided detailed analysis of how the ME-LHP compensation chamber volume varies with the number of the evaporators (N) for a typical LHP system (ALPHA LHP). On the basis of their work, Bugby et al [2] made a simplified analysis for generalized LHP system and pointed out that CC volume of ME-LHP increases with N, eventually becoming infinite for N greater than around 4. From existing literatures, it is indeed that the majorities of all developed and tested ME-LHPs are two-evaporator LHPs.…”

“…Goncharov et al [9,13] proposed Eqs. (1)(2) to check the CC volume. It is assumed that multiple evaporators with its own CC and multiple CCs have the same volume.…”

“…The theoretical and experimental research on ME-LHP originated in 1988 and 1992, respectively [13]. These were mainly involved in the feasibility of ME-LHP [2,[37][38] In an LHP with multiple evaporators and multiple condensers, the operating temperature becomes much more complex. Each CC is still subjected to the energy balance and is therefore affected not only by those factors in single-evaporator LHP, such as applied heat load, sink temperature, ambient temperature, but also by the heat load distribution among evaporators, and heat dissipating capability of each condenser.…”

“…From the above, ME-LHP retains all features of state-of-the-art LHP and offers additional advantages to enhance the functionality, performance, versatility, and reliability of the system. The operational and design feasibility has been verified [2].…”

“…multi-evaporator loop heat pipe (ME-LHP), multi-evaporator capillary pump loop (ME-CPL) and multi-evaporator hybrid loop heat pipe (ME-HLHP), which were derived and developed from LHP, CPL, combined LHP and CPL, respectively. Bugby et al [2][3] illustrated the architectures, the distinctive and unique characteristics of such two-phase loop options. Among them, ME-LHP has distinct advantages such as high system heat transport capability, high pumping, self-starting capability, ability to cool multiple heat sources, heat load sharing among multiple evaporators, flexibility in system design and operation, and has therefore become attractive to the thermal control for spacecraft and high-power electronics applications.…”