Experimental study on the thermal performance of a novel ultra-thin aluminum flat heat pipe

Shiwei Zhang, Jieling Chen, Yalong Sun, Jie Li, Jian Zeng, Wei Yuan and Yong Tang

Renewable Energy, 2019, vol. 135, issue C, 1133-1143

Abstract: This study proposes a novel ultra-thin aluminum flat heat pipe with thickness of 1.5 mm for the first time in order to satisfy the ever increasing requirements for cost-effective, physically compact and highly efficient thermal management solutions. The extruded aluminum tube contains multiple separate micro cavities that work as independent micro heat pipes and a two-level compressing process is applied to flatten the tube to the ideal thickness. Sintered aluminum fibers and aluminum fiber meshes with surface treatment are inserted into each cavity of the ultra-thin heat pipe as the extra wicks for comparison. The thermal response characteristics of the fabricated aluminum heat pipes, including the temperature uniformity, thermal resistance, and effects of wick structure and inclination angles, are fully investigated. Under large inclination angle (90°), the smooth heat pipe without any extra wick performs lower temperature difference, lower thermal resistance, and higher heat transport capacity compared to that with aluminum fiber wick whereas the heat pipes with wicks present superiority under smaller inclination angles (60° and 30°) due to the liquid backflow enhancement. Besides, comparative study also shows that wick structure optimization holds the potential to improve the thermal performance of this ultra-thin two-phase device.

Keywords: Ultra-thin heat pipe; Thermal management; Aluminum fiber; Thermal resistance; Inclination angle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148118315519
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:135:y:2019:i:c:p:1133-1143

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2018.12.097

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().