Use of heat pipes for avionics cooling

Experiments have been carried out in order to study the effectiveness of th e heat pipe in cooling high dissipative components which are integrated in Avionics Electronic Modules (AEM). The results show that heat pipes elimina te hot spots and spread very well the heat dissipated from the components. The experiments, which are carried out with a real AEM, allow for determini ng order of magnitude of heat-source/heat sink thermal resistances useful f or heat pipe integration design and fabrication. The numerical tool develop ed on the basis of the experimental results allow for the optimization and better integration of the heat pipe into the AEM.