Heat pipe cooling of an aerospace foam mold manufacturing process

Abstract

A passive heat pipe cooling system was developed to cool a Bendix foam mold used to manufacture aerospace foam parts. The cooling system consists of ten copper-water heat pipes with cooling fins implanted into the aluminum mold and cooled by a domestic size fan blowing ambient air. The number and location of the heat pipes was determined to provide the most effective cooling and mold isothermalization based on experimental measurements of mold temperatures during the exothermic foaming process and from practical considerations of the mold geometry and use. Performance tests were cnducted on an individual heat pipe and on the ten heat pipes implanted in the mold. Both exothermic foam heating and internal electrical heat input were used in the experiments. The experimental test results indicate that the heat pipe cooling system with a fan is four to six times faster than free convection cooling of the mold with no heat pipes or fan and nearly twice as fast as cooling by the fan only. Similarly fast increases in mold heating time in the cure furnace could be realized if the heat pipes are used during this part of the production process. The heat pipes also cool hot spots inmore » the mold and help isothermalize the mold so that better quality foam parts should be produced.« less