A high-Performance Cold Plate Design for Sustainable Thermal Management in Long-Term Space Missions

Effective thermal management is a critical aspect of spacecraft design, ensuring operational safety and reliability of systems in the harsh and variable space environment. For long-duration missions, such as the Lunar Gateway, thermal regulation is especially vital to protect sensitive equipment and ensure crew comfort. Most cold-plate designs (such as the ones currently adopted on the Gateway as baseline), however, face significant limitations: they are not optimized concerning thermal efficiency, they are inhomogeneous in terms of materials and manufacturing, and contribute sensibly to the overall mass of the modules. The present thesis addresses these challenges by proposing an optimized cold-plate architecture designed taking into account the requirements of the International Habitat (I-HAB) module on the Lunar Gateway. Even though this module is utilized as reference and starting point for the investigation, all the achievements brought by this research (focusing on enhanced efficiency, material innovation, and reduced mass), are considered to have general validity and may be implemented in any future exploration mission. The thesis is organized into four parts. The First Chapter is an introductory review of the state-of-the-art in cold-plate technology, highlighting the constraints of existing designs and evaluating alternative manufacturing techniques suited for space applications. The Second Chapter deals with a comprehensive compatibility study between the selected metal (aluminum) and fluid (propylene glycol and water - PGW), through static and dynamic tests to evaluate thermal, chemical, and mechanical stability under operational conditions. Chapter Three is a numerical approach employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to guide and optimize the cold-plate design. This involves mesh sensitivity analyses, modeling of thermal physics, and iterative improvements to achieve an efficient heat transfer solution that meets the high standards set by the research perpetrators. Numerical analyses also include an innovative method to model aluminum open-cell foam. Finally, Chapter Four is a concluding chapter synthesizing the findings, summarizing design achievements, and suggesting future research directions to further advance cold-plate technology for lunar and deep-space missions. The findings of this work contribute to the development of a high-performance cold-plate design that leaves behind the limitations of traditional cold-plate systems, offering a more efficient, lightweight, and reliable solution aligned with the long-term needs of space exploration. Manufacturing reliability is pursued, with an eye always pointed towards new technologies and processes.