A novel miniaturized loop heat pipe

The research on a novel miniaturized loop heat pipe (LHP) consisted of an evaporator, a condenser, vapor and liquid lines is presented in this paper. In the LHP, the evaporator was separated into two parts of boiling and suction chambers by a vapor separator, which drove vapor to one-way flow to vapor line. Moreover, the bottom of evaporator was connected as the cycle channel of refrigerant. Thin copper plates with micro-fins as enhanced structures fabricated by the ploughing-extrusion (P-E) method were embedded in the boiling chamber. Accordingly, the copper fiber sintered felt fabricated by the solid-phase sintering of copper fibers with rough surface, was filled in the suction chamber of evaporator as the wick to provide the capillary force. In addition, the integral rhombic-shaped pillars fabricated by the milling, behaved as intensified condensation structures in the condenser. The startup and operation characteristics of LHP were tested under different heat loads and refrigerants. The experimental results showed that the highest temperature of evaporator reached 93.2 °C under the maximum heat load of 150 W.