A novel micro-capillary groove-wick miniature heat pipe

Miniature heat pipes (MHP) are passive heat transport devices mainly considered in electronics packaging for high heat flux acquisition and transport and their applications could include thermal management of a variety of electronic devices such as computer processors and laser diodes. This paper describes a novel screen wick design suitable for miniature heat pipes. The new design promises improved performance and ease of fabrication and is recommended in place of the familiar forms of the rectangular groove design miniature heat pipes. Design and fabrication details along with steady state horizontal orientation performance test results of a proof-of-concept rectangular copper-water heat pipe are presented. Heat flux, temperature difference and heat transfer coefficient data are compared with the literature data of a comparable flat miniature heat pipe with machined groove wick. The performance of the new design matches the comparable groove design. The evaporator heat flux of the present design was 115 W/cm/sup 2/ at the operating temperature of 90/spl deg/C and evaporator-to-adiabatic temperature difference of 37/spl deg/C. Results on the heat transfer coefficients are also presented.