TY - JOUR
TI - Environmental tests of vapor compression heat pump for space applications
AU - Ma Xudong
AU - Ma Rui
AU - Ye Yilin
AU - Yan Suying
AU - Wang Feng
AU - Wu Yuting
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2021
VL - 25
IS - 5
SP - 3923
EP - 3932
PT - Article
AB - Heat pumps are needed to provide a suitable temperature for both people and equipment in spacecraft. This paper reports on work designed to see if vapor compression heat pumps, in particular, can be expected to function normally in space. A vapor compression heat pump was built and tested under conditions of high temperature (70℃), low temperature (0℃), and near-vacuum (10-4 Pa). It was found that the coefficient of performance of this heat pump was 2.99 at both high and low temperatures, and was 2.1 under near vacuum conditions. The results suggest that vapor compression heat pumps are suitable for use in space.