Experimental and numerical investigation of the thermal performance of a novel sintered-wick heat pipe

Thermal performance of a novel sintered wick heat pipe was investigated in this study. Two types of sintered wick heat pipes were fabricated and tested at different filling ratios of water, and their thermal resistances in different modes were compared. In the first type, wick was sintered annularly (conventional type), and in the other one (novel type of sintered wick) it was sintered only in one third of cross-section. Results showed that dry-out occurs at higher heat input by an increase in the filling ratio. Moreover, the best filling ratio is 20% for both heat pipes. Thermal resistances of the partly sintered wick heat pipe are approximately 28%, 17% and 47% lower than those of the annularly sintered one at 20% filling ratio in the vertical, horizontal and reverse-vertical modes, respectively. Gravity has a slight effect on partly sintered wick heat pipe performance in the horizontal mode. This novel type of sintered wick heat pipe has simpler structure, and its manufacturing is more affordable compared with the annularly sintered wick. Hence, the use of this type of novel heat pipe (partly sintered wick) rather than the conventional type (annularly sintered one) is recommended in most applications, especially in space conditions where the gravity is negligible. In addition, experimental results were compared with numerical ones, and it was shown that the Florez orthorhombic and Alexander models can provide reasonable predictions for the effective thermal conductivity of water-saturated sintered powder-metal wicks.