VIDEO: The future of cooling spacecraft: Issam Mudawar and two-phase flow

6/28/2016 |

As the future of spaceflight takes shape, how do we manage the extreme temperatures encountered by spacecraft? Traditional systems like the Space Shuttle have used single-phase liquids, circulating just like in your refrigerator. Thanks to research being done at Purdue University, future spacecraft will incorporate two-phase systems, where a liquid boils and then condenses — which removes more heat, more efficiently, with lower overall weight. Purdue students have performed these heat transfer experiments aboard a microgravity simulator (the “vomit comet”), under the direction of Issam Mudawar (Betty Ruth and Milton B. Hollander Family Professor of Mechanical Engineering), in conjunction with NASA Glenn Research Center.