Theoretical and Experimental Investigations on Heat Pipes Under High Acceleration Field for Lithium Cell Cooling 921166

Thie Paper is the continuation of the works concerning the heat pipe pipe integration within Lithium batteries as thermal control device [ref 8,9]. The previous work showed the high performance and ability of Nickel/F11 grooved heat pipe to limit battery's temperature and reduce the internal thermal gradient When it operates in Zero̲G environment. In the present paper we analyse the performance of this concept during reentry phase of the spacecraft When it is subject to high acceleration. Theoretical study of heat pipe under body forces is performed and results are presented. An experimental assembly has been set up in laboratory to simulate an acceleration field by centrifugal concept. These studies show that heat pipe can be use to cool lithium batteries in the different phases of sapacecraft flight and extension to other dissipating payload is tinkable.