Development of Solid-State Waste Heat Delivery System for Electric Aircraft

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) is developing a heat pipe-based thermal delivery system to efficiently manage the waste heat of an electric aircraft. The heat pipe system will be integrated with thermoacoustic heat pump tubes developed by NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). This paper will discuss the design of a full-scale heat pipe layout for a MW-class commercial electric aircraft based on the NASA inputs, including operating temperatures, power and relative distances/elevations of heat sources, heat pump tubes and end users. Experimental results of a prototype long and curved thermosyphon designed to transport heat from the turbofan to the wing will be presented. Finally, a two-phase heat transport system with solid-state thermal switching/control capabilities based on variable conductance heat pipe technology that will be used to control the heat transfer rate to various end users will be introduced and experimentally demonstrated.