Week Three Update

Week Three Update

Construction of the heat pipe began in week three. One of the major components of the device, the wick, was assembled and placed inside of the pipe. The two sealing caps were fitted to the pipe, but they will not be soldered until next week.

Wick Construction

In any horizontal heat pipe, a wick is necessary to transport working fluid from the condenser end to the evaporator end through capillary motion. To complete this task, the wick must be made of a material that allows for liquid flow due to capillary motion. Certain industrial heat pipes have shaped wicks with thin channels that allow for this, however, for the first prototype, the design will use a simple sponge lining. Further testing with various wicks will be conducted to determine the most effective material and shape. 

To assemble the wick, several sponges were sliced into thin layers. These layers were then glued to a piece of coated, water resistant paper. This paper was then rolled into a cylinder with the sponges facing inward. This cylinder was inserted into the end of the heat pipe and wooden spacers were inserted to better mold the sponges to the curved shape of the pipe over the course of the week. 

Planning Ahead

The next major component that need to be added to the heat pipe will be the radiators. Originally, the radiator was thought to be able to put onto the pipe by simply soldering or welding it. However, in order for the radiators to work well, it has to be a metal to metal contact between the radiator and the pipe body. Another potential problem in applying the radiator is the spacing between the different fins of the radiators. Since the work space is around a 1 inch diameter pipe, it will be quite small to be able to evenly space out the fins. To deal with this problem, by aligning the fins up first and attach it to a flat sheet of metal, then bending the sheet of metal around the tube, it will deal with the problem of working around the pipe to attach each individual fin. This is easier said than done but currently this is the plan for attaching the radiator.

In order to see the effectiveness of the pipe. The pipe will be tested first without the radiators and then once again with the radiator. If the non-radiator pipe works better than the radiator pipe then the radiator will need to be reworked.