Development of biporous wicks for flat-plate loop heat pipe

Operational characteristics of a loop heat pipe with a flat evaporator and two primary biporous wicks

“…The small pores maintain sufficient capillary pumping force to supply liquid for the evaporating interface. Many experiments [19][20][21][22] have been carried out with biporous wicks and the experimental results show good performance.…”

Heat utilisation technologies: A critical review of heat pipes

“…Due to the complex relationships between heat transfer and the geometric structure of the heat pipe Zhang et al [7] have applied Pareto genetic algorithm to multi-objectively optimise heat pipe design. The additional benefits of wicks with higher porosity is reduce heat leakage from the condenser into the evaporator [8]. Porous wicks can be either of two types, dispersed and non-dispersed, as shown in Fig.…”

“…Experimentally, temperature measurements are used to estimate the maximum power and the overall thermal resistance. Typically, the porous wick structure can consist of the following types: sintered, groove, and mesh [8]. For graphical illustration of the wicks, refer to the following Ref.…”

“…Higher sintering temperature will result in better mechanical strength. Different materials require different sintering atmospheres, for example nickel powder should be sintered at a reducing atmosphere to restore the surface of the particles [8].…”

Investigating the effect of double-layer wick thickness ratio on heat transfer performance of loop heat pipe

“…However, detailed internal pore parameters and designs were not provided. Recently, more studies have been done on wick manufacturing and design; some tried ceramic materials [9] or other nonmetals as wick materials [10,11], some experimented with wicks with different pore sizes [11,12], some focused on enhancing anti-gravity properties of the wicks [13,14], and some tried multi-layer wicks [15]. In all, we found that both monoporous and biporous wick designs have already been proposed, but all of these reports lack key detailed internal design parameters necessary for successful manufacturing; especially concerning multi-layer wick designs, all reports indicate that they are currently still in the design processes only, and detailed design information have yet to be provided.…”