Long and high conductance helium heat pipe

This paper reports on the development and the thermal tests of two superfluid helium heat pipes. They feature a copper braid located inside a 6 mm outer diameter stainless tube fitted with copper ends for mechanical anchoring. The copper braid is the support of the Rollin superfluid helium film which is essential in the heat transfer. The extremely low thickness of the liquid film allows for a low filling pressure, making the technology very simple without the need for any external hot reservoir and with the possibility to easily bend the tube. We present the design and discuss the thermal performance of two heat pipes tested for several filling pressures, adverse tilt angles and in 1.4-2.0 K temperature range. A minimum filling pressure (0.6 MPa) is needed to get significant transport capacity. A 12 mW transport capacity is achieved for 3.0 MPa filling pressure. It is shown that the long heat pipe (1.2 m) and the short one (0.25 m) have similar thermal performance in adverse tilt. At 1.7 K the long heat pipe, 120 g in weight, reaches a transport capacity of 5.7 mW/4.2 mW for a tilt angle of 0 / 60° and a thermal conductance of 600 mW/K for 4 mW transferred power. When the condenser reaches the super-fluid transition temperature, the Rollin film accelerates the cool down of the evaporator down to 1.7 K with a heating power applied to the evaporator.