Self-Supporting Microchannel Liquid-Cooled Plate for T/R Modules Based on Additive Manufacturing: Study on Its Pass Design, Formation Process and Boiling Heat Transfer Performance

Abstract

The additive manufacturing technology of laser-based powder bed fusion (L-PBF), which is used to produce boiling heat transfer structures, offers a high processing flexibility and can provide lattice structures with a high surface-to-volume ratio. As an important part of the phased array radar, the plentiful transmit/receive (T/R) modules can generate considerable heat. Targeting this local overheating problem, this study discusses the pass design, the optimal formation process, and boiling heat transfer performance of microchannel liquid-cooled plates based on L-PBF additive manufacturing technology. The optimum design and process parameters were obtained by performing basic channel experiments. On this basis, the design and formation experiments of the microchannel structure were performed, and then the porosity and pore morphology of microchannel liquid-cooled plate samples were analysed. The boiling heat transfer experiments were conducted with deionised water, and the boiling heat transfer characteristics were compared with the saturated boiling curve of a traditional copper-tube liquid-cooled plate. The average wall temperature of the designed samples decreased by 4% compared with that of the traditional liquid-cooled plate under the same heat flow density the value reduced from 111.9 °C to 108.2 °C. Furthermore, within the same optimal boiling temperature range, the average heat flow densities of all the prepared samples increased by >60% compared with those of the traditional liquid-cooled plate the value increased from minimum 16 W∙cm−2 to maximum 34 W∙cm−2. The self-supporting microchannel structure can considerably improve the heat dissipation effect of T/R modules and solve the local overheating problem.