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THERMACORE was awarded a $3 million Option Phase contract extension by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to continue developing and commercializing active heat sink technologies for Micro-technologies for Air-Cooled Exchangers (MACE). The original contract had been awarded in December 2008 and is worth $9.5 million.
To qualify for the contract extension, Thermacore successfully created a thermal solution demonstrator combining existing and developmental heat transfer technology that exceeded the requirements of the initial 24-month “base effort” phase of the contract. The solution's heat flux was more than double the contract's requirements, and thermal resistance was 10 percent lower than what was originally proposed. In the current Option Phase, which runs from Oct. 1, 2010 through Jan. 1, 2012, Thermacore will commercialize and re-engineer the technology for more specific applications and incorporate active heat sink technology to improve thermal performance even further.
The MACE program intends to harness active micro-technologies for improved heat sink thermal performance to cool military electronic systems for telecommunications, active sensing and imaging, radar and other functions. Thermacore's partners include the University of Minnesota, Lockheed Martin Company and the Bergquist Torrington Company.
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