UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 14, 2020. Rosatom/TVEL’s Novouralsk-based asset CentroTech got its latest invention, Metallic Flat-Type Heat Transfer Tube, patented by the Russian Federation under Hyper-Heat-Conducting Void Structures, the company’s press service reports.

‘The invention falls into the heat engineering category and is meant for cooling print-boards in onboard equipment of space vehicles. The appliance can also get used in any type of industry where rapid heat rejection or thermal field flattening could be necessary,’ the company says.

The tube is a flat, thin, airtight structure with some porous material (a wick with a working fluid such as water or organic matter) and vapor-transfer channels inside. The heat transfer is ensured through working fluid transiting from one thermodynamic phase to another (that is, from the heating area to the condensation area) and back.

One of the tube’s advantages is high thermal conductivity (ten times better than that of aluminum), which means the appliance can get used efficiently for cooling and thermal conditioning of objects located both on the Earth and in space.

Hyper-heat-conducting void structures present a revolutionary solution to the problem of cooling onboard equipment of space vehicles; the solution can be used for the vehicles currently still at design stage, as the heat transfer tube makes it possible to make the onboard equipment more productive without it getting larger in size or weight.