摘要

One useful type of an oscillating heat pipe (OHP) is a variable-conductance OHP called VC-OHP in contradiction with the conventional fixed conductance OHP. The operating temperature of an OHP connected to a temperature-controlled liquid reservoir can be controlled by the temperature of the liquid reservoir such that the operation temperature is almost identical to the liquid reservoir temperature. In this study, a thermal-design-free structure using a VC-OHP network is proposed for use in next-generation small satellites. No thermal design iteration is necessary and instruments can be mounted without consideration of the thermal design: as a result of the temperature controllability of the VC-OHPs, the temperatures of the structural panels mounted with all instruments are kept constant even if the locations of the instruments or their heat dissipation characteristics change. A model structure with a 0.027-m³ volume mounting three VC-OHPs was made and tested to demonstrate the thermal-design-free concept. Eighteen heaters are mounted on the two panels to simulate the instruments' heat generation and their heat dissipation to other four panels. Thermal performance tests are conducted under ambient air and thermal vacuum conditions. The model structure was then mounted on an aircraft and thermal performance under microgravity conditions was examined. The temperatures of the two panels mounting the heaters are maintained at a constant value and are controlled by the reservoir temperature when the amount or the distribution of the heat dissipation is changed. The temperatures of the two panels were maintained when the heat load was put into the radiator. These experiments demonstrate the thermal-design-free concept.