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Theoretical investigation of two-phase cooling cycles for electronic components in more-electric aircraft.

Number: 2253

Author(s) : KRAMER T., NOZINSKI M., XU Y., THOMAS C., KABEL S.

Summary

Electrification of future commercial aircraft is a promising option to reduce the climate impact of the aviation industry. The multitude of electrically driven components in these more-electric aircraft generate a significant amount of heat at moderate temperature levels, which place high demands on the thermal management system. Particularly whilst “hot-day take-off”-operation the maximum permitted component temperature can be close to or even lower than the ambient temperature. As a result, heat exchangers in conventional liquid cooling loops become excessively large and
deteriorate the overall aircraft performance due to increased mass and drag. This paper discusses different methods to deal with these challenges and suggests three thermal two-phase cycles using evaporative cooling of the electric components. In a simple pumped multiphase cycle, an evaporator, a condenser, and a pump are used. Compared to a conventional liquid cooling loop, higher heat fluxes can be achieved to decrease the size of the heat exchangers, but the ambient temperature on a hot day take-off may still exceed the permissible component temperature. To tackle that problem, a vapor compression cycle is presented. With this second cycle component temperatures below ambient temperature can be achieved, but the power consumption of the cooling system is increased compared to system one.
The third cooling cycle uses heat recovery during cruise conditions and therefore has an even higher efficiency, but the system complexity is highly increased. For the discussed cycles, pentane emerges as the most promising refrigerant due to its favorable thermophysical properties and low environmental impact. A numerical analysis of the drag and mass evoked by the ram air heat exchangers highlights the potential of a vapor compression cycle to cool electrically driven components at low temperature levels. Additionally, a combined cycle with heat recovery during cruise operation may achieve power savings of up to 10 % of the evaporative heat flow rate.

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  • Original title: Theoretical investigation of two-phase cooling cycles for electronic components in more-electric aircraft.
  • Record ID : 30033097
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: 2024 Purdue Conferences. 20th International Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Conference at Purdue.
  • Publication date: 2024/07/17

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