Skip to main content

Heat Pipe Fabrication/Materials

By
Materials:
To create a copper heat pipe as shown in the final design with meshed wick and Aluminum heat sink, the materials listed below are needed:
  • 2' of 1/2" thin walled copper pipe
  • 1/8" Male/Female NPT Ball Valve
  • 2" 6061-T5 Aluminum Round Stock
  • 1/2" Brass Round Stock
  • 31/64" Drill bit for tapping
  • 1/8" NPT Tap
  • 0.0045" Copper Mesh Sheet
  • High Temperature Solder/Silver Solder
  • Flux
  • 1/8" NPT Barbed Nipple for Vacuum Tubing
  • Vacuum Pump
Prototype Fabrication: April 19th, 2018
Prototypes 1 and 2 were constructed during Week 3 to gain valuable data and fabrication methods.

Raw Materials
Heat Pipe cut to length and copper mesh rolled into interior
Preparing to solder the ends of the mesh to prevent crinkling on the interior of the main body
Soldered end of the copper mesh
Crimped end of the main body to seal it off
Another shot of the crimped main body end
Prototype 1 in the testing apparatus
Prototypes 1 and 2 demonstrating their design and construction similarities

Heat Pipe Version 1
After reviewing the results from Prototypes 1 and 2, some design changes were implemented to further increase the efficiency and functionality of the heat pipe. It was decided that a smaller tube diameter would benefit capillary action within the heat pipe and transfer the working fluid more efficiently. These ideas were put into construction during Week 4.
 
Materials laid out for measuring
Smaller diameter copper pipe used as a forming tool for the mesh
Total length of the mesh and former
Mesh pushed into the interior of the copper pipe
Side by side view of Prototypes 3 and 4
Final Design Iteration
It was decided after some unexpected results from prototypes 3 and 4 that further design changes needed to be implemented. A partial vacuum was decided to be the best option to increase the performance of the heat pipe and reach the teams overall efficiency goal. Here are some of the fabrication pictures for the next version.

1/2" Brass round stock and 1/8" NPT Ball Valve
Facing the brass round stock
Drilling a tapping size hole for 1/8" NPT
Finished part
Bushing w/ Ball Valve
Ball Valve threaded into the bushing
Soldered bushing and copper heat pipe body
Completed valve assembly
Cutting off the 6061 stock to length
Facing the 2" round stock
Fin cutting for the heatsink

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 1

By
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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 7

By
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:
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 8

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more