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Possibly a Project Extension: Future Vacuum Work

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Investigating the possibilities of running a project extension to test higher efficiency vacuum heat pipe designs improving the effectiveness of transferring heat over longer distances and complex geometries.
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Week 1

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The primary focus of week 1 was to research the existing designs of a heat pipe, understand the mechanisms at which they operate, and come up with ideas to build an efficient low temperature heat pipe. The main purpose of the heat pipe is to transfer heat from one place to another. Research was conducted on low-temperature applications and the advantage and disadvantage of different designs. After analyzing the information and taking into account the time and budget restriction for this project, an initial design of the heat pipe was generated.  The heat pipe will be made of copper tubing with mesh inside the tubes to serve as a wick. There will also be Aluminum heatsink fins at the condenser end to increase surface area for the spreading of heat to the surrounding. The main tasks include research, initial design, ordering of material, generation of CAD model, construction, testing, and optimization. The design and construction of the heat pipe are limited to a budget of $400 ...
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Week 7

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This week in lab the team finished the construction of the final heat pipe design and was able to find a vacuum pump to test how a heat pipe would perform under vacuum. Unfortunately, the results were not promising as the new heat pipe did not nearly work as it was expected to. For the final heat pipe, one end is closed, while the other end is equipped with a valve, as shown below, that can be used to add working fluid and connect to the vacuum pump to create vacuum. After the air is pumped out, the heat pipe is tested with acetone and with water as working fluids. The result is not as well as expected. More experiments will be conducted on this heat pipe next week. The results of the experimentation done are shown below:
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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 o...
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