Week Six Update

Modification of the pipe

From the first test last week, the pipe definitely need more testing and modification. This week, the pipe received some changes to see if a certain alteration in an element will affect the amount of heat transferred. The wick was removed from the pipe. When opening up the pipe and taking out the wick inside, there was a blue/green color to the wick.

Figure 1: The outside of the wick. 

Figure 2: The inside of the wick

As seen from figure 1 above. The outside of the wick has adopted a greenish color. However, figure 2 shows that the inside of the wick is normal. A member of the group made the observation and made an interesting hypothesis that the greenish color could be due to the oxidation of copper. Two facts that could back this hypothesis up is that the outside of the wick was the only thing that touched the copper pipe's inside. The fact that the copper is oxidizing is not ideal because any chemical reactions in the pipe could change the pressure of the pipe and introduce impurities into the working fluid. The pipe was then left to dry.
An alternate designed that need to be tested is the pipe without the wick. This will reveal if the designed wick was doing what it was supposed to do or not. This time, the boiled distilled water was added like last time. The threaded end of the pipe had to wrapped around with PTFE tape and then the water was poured in. The cap was then put on and tightly sealed. This get the pipe all ready for testing in lab during this week.

Figure 3: The pipe being wrapped in PTFE tape

Figure 4: Pouring the boiled distilled water into the pipe

Creation of Radiator Fins