Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2020
Abstract
In this work, we explore the thermal properties of gallium as an effective phase change material for thermal management applications. Thermal storage and dissipation of gallium manufactured heat sinks were compared to conventional phase change heat sinks. The comparison revealed a 50-fold (80 K versus 1.5 K) potential reduction in temperature during the phase change process due to the high density, thermal conductivity, and latent heat of fusion. The gallium creates shallow thermal gradients when transiently heated, producing a nearly isothermal process. Computational estimates using lumped sum parameters were able to provide simple modeling to predict the results. Gallium based phase change devices offer a combination of low volume, small temperature drops across the device, simplicity of manufacture and design, and high energy storage applications.
Source Publication
Journal of Aerospace Engineering (ISSN 0893-1321 | eISSN 1943-5525)
Recommended Citation
Hartsfield, C. R., Shelton, T. E., Palmer, B. O., & O’Hara, R. P. (2020). All-Metallic Phase Change Thermal Management Systems for Transient Spacecraft Loads. Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 33(4), 04020039. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0001150
Comments
This article is published by ASCE, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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