Advanced Pumps and Cold Plates for Two-Phase Cooling Loops, Phase I

Advanced instruments used for earth science missions require improved cooling systems to remove heat from high power electronic components and maintain tight temperature control for sensitive instruments. Mesoscopic Devices proposes to develop a pumped two-phase cooling loop that will provide high heat flux cooling (> 100 W/cm^2) in a lightweight system. In Phase I, an extremely compact pump optimized for two phase cooling will be demonstrated, along with advanced lightweight cold plates. A complete two-phase loop using the advanced pump and cold plates will be constructed and tested.

Two-phase pumped cooling loops are expected to be enabling technology for high-power motor drives, rack-mount computers, advanced workstations, and microwave systems for vacuum deposition. The proposed system could be adapted for cooling phased-array radars, communications and industrial lasers. The proposed two-phase pumped loop will enable cooling of multiple distributed loads, decreasing the mass and increasing the sensitivity of advanced instruments for terrestrial, aircraft, balloon and satellite missions. It can be used for cooling instruments, high power electronics, radar and laser systems.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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