STUDY ON THE WORKING CHRACTERISTICS

AND PERFORMANCE OF LOOP HEAT PIPE

USING A SINTERED METAL WICK

Wook-Hyun Lee, Ki-Woo Lee, Won-Pyo Chun, Ki-Ho Park and Kye-Jung Lee

Waste Heat Utilization Center, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon, Korea

Tel:82-42-860-3169; Fax:82-42-860-3133; lwhok@kier.re.kr

Keywords: Loop Heat Pipe, Sintered Metal Wick, Thermal Resistance

Abstract : Recent semiconductors for electronic components become larger in capacity, but rather smaller in size. Therefore the high performance of heat pipe and heat sink has been essential in the electronic cooling system, because its heat generation density has been increased more and more.

In the conventional heat pipe using capillary force, the capillary pumping force is very important to improve the heat transfer performance and there have been many studies about porous media to enhance the capillary pumping force. Among these kind of heat pipes, loop heat pipe (LHP) is a very reliable and versatile heat transport system for enhancing the performance of electronic components cooling.

In this study we have manufactured the LHP(Loop heat pipe) with sintered metal wick and investigated the parameters affecting the performance of LHP experimentally.

Water was used as a working fluid and fill charge ratio was changed. LHP basically consists of the separated vapor/liquid channels, evaporator having sintered metal wick and condenser cooled by water. Sintered metal square blocks of 10mm thick (square size : 52*52mm) which made of stainless steel powder were used as wicks and its parameters such as mean pore diameter, porosity, permeability and other characteristics were measured through the porosimeter, electron microscope and other test facilities. The influence of fill charge ratio and inclination angle (0^o, 90^o) on the performance of LHP was considered in this study.