Two-Phase Flow Cooling for Vehicle Thermal Management

Army's next generation vehicles require more electric and electronic devices with increasing power density for improved multi-functionality. The increasing waste heat from these devices will present great challenges to the capabilities of conventional air/liquid cooling systems in cooling multiple, high heat flux sources dispersed over the entire vehicle. In this paper, a high performance hybrid loop thermal bus technology for vehicle thermal management is presented. The technology combines the robust operation of pumped two-phase flow cooling with the simplicity of capillary flow management. The test results show the hybrid loop thermal bus can manage multiple high heat flux heat sources during the startup and transient heat input operation with no flow control.