Thermal Analysis and Testing of a Heat Pipe With Woven Wired Wick

Abstract

The heat generation of electronic systems has been increasing because of the increase in the speed and density of such systems. High-power light-emitting diode and power semiconductor modules are examples of electronic systems that exhibit the aforementioned thermal problem. Recently, microsized cooling devices that are developed using the semiconductor process of silicon and glass have been used as electronic cooling solutions. However, microsized cooling devices with an equivalent diameter of less than 1 mm have low cooling capability close to 10 W. Therefore, cooling devices that have high cooling capability are needed in the field of electronic cooling. In this paper, a woven wire wick with a high capillary limit and high productivity was developed, and small-sized heat pipes with outer diameters of 3 and 4 mm were designed, manufactured, and tested. Performance test results show the maximum cooling capability of 27.9 W at a working temperature of 90 degrees C for the small-sized heat pipe with length of 300 mm and outer diameter of 4 mm. The capillary radius distributions in the vapor-liquid meniscus and the pressure distributions in the vapor and liquid paths were obtained through numerical analysis. The obtained maximum cooling capability at various working temperatures was compared with the experimental results. The maximum cooling capability was compared with that of other wick structures as well.