Transient Heat Load Management for Future Advanced Aircraft

Future advanced aircraft engineers face an appreciable technical challenge to design Thermal Management System (TMS) of adequate capacity within the available space. Heat Exchangers (HE) of TMS are the largest components and are designed to meet the maximum heat duty, experienced only during a fraction of flight cycle and resulting in over-sized system for the majority of the flight. Using phase-change is seen as a possible option which could be used in reducing the size of TMS. It would be used to store the transient heat loads at constant temperature of phase change which would then be rejected under less strenuous conditions.
This research will investigate and evaluate novel transient heat storage technologies through Phase Change Material (PCM) Heat Exchanger (HE), also known as heat battery design or micro-encapsulations of phase-change materials within the working fluid for advanced aircraft TMS.
Numerical modelling, CFD (heat and fluid flow and phase change of melting/solidification) together with the experiments could be used to develop validated models of existing and/or conceptual solutions. In the event of any physical prototyping and experimentation, BAE Systems Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) facilities could be utilised in producing state-of-the-art components.