COOLER

Louvers are thermal control elements placed over external radiators to tune heat rejection from typically a factor 1 when fully closed to 5 when fully open. The most commonly used louver is the bimetallic, spring-actuated, rectangular blade louver also known as venetian-blind louver. 

The objective of the project is to develop a compact and in-plane opening louver with variable thermo-optical properties for applications where deployment of classical louver blades is not possible or convenient because of lack of space/clearance.

The targeted applications are typically for mini and micro satellites, cubesat and compact instruments requiring a dedicated thermal control design and required to work in variable thermal environments. An array of such devices could also in principle be used to accommodate larger radiative areas.

The COOLER (COmpact and in-plane Opening LouvER with variable thermo-optical properties) is a mechanism which is designed to reject heat in the range of 0.1 W to 10 W, when the blades are in closed and in open configuration respectively. An SMA spring actuator is activated when the temperature on the radiator increases opening the blades of the louver. When there is no heat source and the device is cooled down a BIAS spring closes the blades insulating the radiator. The device has a square footprint with dimensions 100mm x 100mm which makes it suitable for cubesat applications.

Heron Engineering participates in the detailed design of the the developed Engineering Model, by performing the following analyses:

The prime contractor of the project is CSEM while FOTEC and ENBIO complete the consortium.