An investigation on phase change device for satellite thermal control

With the development of high power dissipation, low thermal inertia and cyclical operation units in space application, such as high power amplifier, the phase change material (PCM) technology seems to be a proper thermal solution. In this study, the benefit of PCM device on temperature stability is verified with the analysis result of FORMOSAT-5 satellite. The solution is also expected to reduce the required radiator area and heating power. However, the adopted materials usually have drawback of low thermal conductivity that leads to large thermal resistance. This paper thus presents both numerical and experimental investigations on configuration design of PCM's container. A comparison is carried out between the container with and without internal pin-fins. The results show the effectiveness of pin-fins that act as the thermal conductivity enhancer (TCE) to improve the temperature uniformity. Furthermore, experimental tests for four candidate materials, that is, n-octadecane, n-eicosane, glycerin and gallium, are presented. The thermal behaviors of melting, solidification, and supercooling on these materials are compared with available literature data and discussed in this study.