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Week 8

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This week in lab the heatsink was turned on the lathe from 2" 6061-T5 aluminum round stock. The finished part deviated slightly from the plans as it was determined that it would be ineffective to build the entire part after a cutting tool failure led to one of the fins breaking. The finished part is composed of only 4 fins compared to the designed 16. A CAD model was drawn up with a drawing sheet to use while machining.
Figure 1: Heatsink Drawing w/ Dimensions
Other than the tool failure, the machining process when fairly smooth with the completion of a finished part.
 Figure 2: Cutting off a blank in the Horizontal Band Saw
 Figure 3: Facing the part
Figure 4: Fin cutting with a 1/16" parting tool

Some tests of the finalized heat pipe were also run this week, it was tested with water and again with acetone. During the test, at about 450 s, the heater at the evaporator end was turned up to a higher setting, because a possible reason for the inefficiency of the heat pipe is that the temperature is too low for the water to evaporate. As shown in the table and graph below, turning up the heater did allow the heat pipe to function slightly better, but not by a great extent. One reason for the inefficiency compared to other prototypes is heat loss in between the evaporator end and the condenser end due to greater length of the heat pipe. 
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