Thermo-mechanical Analysis and Design of an Additive Manufactured Evaporator for a Two-Phase Mechanically Pumped Loop

An innovative Two-Phase Mechanically Pumped Loop (2PMPL) for spacecraft thermal management is under development at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The system includes an additively manufactured evaporator, fabricated at JPL, thanks to the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) technique. In the evaporator a wick structure serves as phase separator between a liquid chamber and vapor channels. Here, a thermo-structural analysis and design of the 5th generation of the evaporator is presented. The purpose of this study is to find the best configuration of the evaporator that minimizes stresses in the structure and maximizes thermal performance. Analytical and numerical models were developed taking into account the main structural and thermal loads and material properties of the wick and shell of the evaporator.

美国国家航空航天局喷气推进实验室（NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory）正在开发一种用于航天器热管理的创新型两相机械泵回路（Two-Phase Mechanically Pumped Loop, 2PMPL）。该系统包含一个增材制造的蒸发器，由JPL采用激光粉末床熔融（Laser Powder Bed Fusion, L-PBF）技术制造。蒸发器内部的芯结构（wick structure）充当液腔与蒸汽通道之间的相分离器。本文介绍了第五代蒸发器的热结构分析与设计。本研究旨在找到蒸发器的最优构型，以最小化结构应力并最大化热性能。研究开发了分析模型与数值模型，考虑了蒸发器芯体与壳体的主要结构载荷、热载荷及材料特性。