Experimental study on the boiling heat transfer characteristics of a pump-driven two-phase cooling loop system for high heat flux avionics

Abstract

Aviation applications face significant cooling challenges due to high power and heat-flux electronic equipment. The use of mechanically pumped two-phase cooling loops (MPTL) coupled with micro-channels has been shown to be an effective heat dissipation method for high heat flux problems. However, currently, no literature has determined the upper limit of the heat dissipation capacity per unit size for this system. It is also crucial to focus on the lag in two-phase flow control under high-energy operating conditions, which can result in oscillations or even instability of the system.In this paper, the cooling ability and resistance characteristics of the system are tested, and a mathematical model is summarized. The designed copper-material micro-channel heat sink can handle 6 kW concentrated heat sources with 120 W/cm2. The surface temperature of the heating element can be stabilized between 63 °C and 70 °C, meeting the temperature requirements of a chip, and the temperature is uniform between the evaporator branches. Furthermore, this paper proposes a new starting method for the MPTL system, which involves starting the pump and heat source in advance to reduce the starting time to 1/8 of the traditional MPTL method. The results presented in this paper indicate that the MPTL system coupled with micro-channels is a promising solution for high power and high heat-flux electronic equipment in aviation applications.