A pumped heat pipe cold plate for high-flux applications

Abstract The design, development, and testing of a pumped heat pipe cold plate is described, with emphasis on measured performance. The device is designed to integrate high-flux, detachable spacecraft payloads to a pumped thermal control loop. The component evaporates ammonia working fluid to remove waste heat from a payload. The control of the evaporation and phase separation is accomplished using the self-regulating capillary fluid management (SRCFM) concept of Holmes et al. This concept also makes the device performance insensitive to gravity.