A study on the feasibility of heat transfer and transport from generator/transmitter combined units of assumed 10MW space solar power system

Feasibility of heat transfer and transport is analyzed for the Space Solar Power System (SSPS) of an assumed 10MW power generation with an idealized generator/ transmitter combined structures. Diameter of the power satellite is 200m, where sunlight is condensed at a magnification of three to reduce the satellite size. Application of boiling and two-phase flow system is a promising method to transport a large amount of thermal energy because it accompanies the transportation of latent heat. The feasibility of thermal energy management was confirmed using boiling and two-phase flow for the 10MW class model, while the enlargement of the power up to 1GW is accompanied by the difficulty of heat removal with high heat generation density from a large area where no technology was developed yet including those for the terrestrial application. In the present research, performance of an example of thin cold plate was tested as a reference to evaluate the performance of cold plates to be developed for boiling and two-phase flow. In addition, a technique to increase the critical heat flux, which gives a limitation of heat removal, was tested and discussed on the basis of experimental results.