Heat Pipe Radiator for the M109 A6 Howitzer

The objective of this paper is to describe the results of a technical effort that demonstrated the feasibility of a heat pipe radiator for the M109 A6 Howitzer. The technical effort consisted of the following three parts: establishing full-scale M109 A6 radiator design requirements, designing a full scale heat pipe radiator, and fabricating and testing a representative segment of the full scale heat pipe radiator to demonstrate thermal and hydraulic performance. The design predictions of the heat pipe radiator showed good agreement with the measured test results. Experimental test results indicated that the representative segment heat pipe radiator met and exceeded the design heat load requirement under extreme environmental conditions.