Recently, the China Academy of Space Technology completed China's first liquid metal thermal management in-orbit test in the field of space technology in the space technology test field, and achieved a series of key technical achievements. At present, various pilot projects in the field of space technology testing are being carried out as planned.
The heat conduction and heat absorption capacity of liquid metals is much greater than that of traditional heat conductive agents, which can achieve rapid emission of high heat, and has high application value in aerospace, advanced energy, high-power devices and other fields. Liquid metal thermal management technology mainly includes interface heat conduction, convection heat transfer and phase change temperature control technology, which is one of the key technologies of space high heat flow density heat dissipation system.
Based on the advantages of simple structure, strong heat transfer ability, high temperature control uniformity, low vibration and low noise of the heat dissipation system based on liquid metal, it can efficiently and reliably realize the heat transfer between high-temperature heat sources such as reactors or isotopes and thermoelectric conversion devices, and can provide high-performance heat for high-power electronic devices or high-power equipment. The impact response ability has broad application prospects in future space missions such as starmeter nuclear power plants, deep space detector nuclear power supplies, and super-power load heat dissipation systems.
The field of aerospace technology testing is facing the future development of spacecraft energy system and industrial application needs. After extensive research and in-depth demonstration, a key technology test and verification project of liquid metal space thermal management in orbit has been put forward.
The liquid metal thermal management test device in the field of aerospace technology test was developed by the Institute of Physical and Chemical Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and installed in the aerospace basic test cabinet of the Mengtian experimental module of the space station. It adopts bismuth-based metal with low melting point, high biosafety and stable chemical characteristics to carry out flow heat dissipation and phase change control in the space microgravity environment. Research and test verification of temperature technology.
After the device is put into orbit, the on-orbit test and two-stage on-orbit test have been completed successively. The device runs stably throughout the whole process, verifies key technologies such as bismuth-based metal controlled melting, expansion buffering, convection heat transfer and phase change temperature control in the space microgravity environment, and obtains the pure forced convection heat transfer characteristic data of the liquid metal laminar flow-turbulent transition zone and the characteristic data of phase change temperature control capacity in the microgravity environment, which is space liquid gold. The design of a high heat flow density heat dissipation system provides a key technical basis.
