Technical Paper
Air Coolant Circuits in the Columbus Pressurized Modules
1992-07-01
921245
The pressurized modules use water and air coolant circuits to remove the dissipated heat from the sources and to transport it to the heat sink. The advantage of the water loops is to provide a high heat removal capability at low power consumption well suited for high specific heat loads i.e. assemblies with high dissipation and small volume. Air coolant circuits offer a higher flexibility to account for different shapes of the equipments and for changes in the configuration of the loop. Thus they are better suited for assemblies with lower dissipation and do not impose as much design restrictions on assemblies as water loops. But they have a higher specific power demand compared to water loops. In the Columbus pressurized modules avionics air loops and cabin air loops are installed. Both of them belong to the Environmental and Life Support Subsystem (ECLSS).