Porous media heat exchangers for cooling of high-power optical components

Abstract

Technologies based on porous media can be used in several classes of heat exchangers that can be used to meet the cooling needs of high heat load optical components as well as other high heat flux applications. These include mechanically pumped single-phase and two-phase porous media heat exchangers, as well as capillary pumped (heat pipe) two-phase designs. A brief overview of each of these classes of heat exchangers is given, and several applications representative of the state of the art are described. Various specific technologies are discussed that have demonstrated the capability to dissipate heat fluxes greater than 1000 W/cm² over areas of interest in optics applications. Finally, an assessment is given of the capabilities of each approach to meet the needs of specific applications.