TY - JOUR
TI - Study of the heat transfer performance of a loop heat pipe with aluminum wick
AU - Lin Bingyao
AU - Xie Rongjian
AU - Tao Leren
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2022
VL - 26
IS - 2
SP - 1379
EP - 1390
PT - Article
AB - This study used aluminum powder as a raw material to fabricate a wick for loop heat pipes by the powder metallurgy method and took advantage of the excellent corrosion resistance, low density and low cost of aluminum. The average pore diameter, porosity and permeability of the aluminum wicks were 9 μm, 47.65%, and 2.1 · 10–13 m–2, respectively. Then, to verify the feasibility of the aluminum wick, it was installed into a loop heat pipe to test the heat transfer performance. The experimental results showed that the loop heat pipe could transport a heating load of 130 W with a thermal resistance of 0.04 K/W under horizontal condition. A steady-state loop heat pipe mathematical model was developed, and the numerical results were compared with the experimental data. The results show that the model data are consistent with the experimental data, which means that Al wicks are suitable for use in the case of a high heating load and light weight.