New technique for installing screen wicking into Inconel 718 heat pipe

The creep behavior of superalloys, including Inconel 718, in the presence of liquid sodium is not yet known. To study this problem, the NASA Lewis Research Center has initiated a program with the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) of Rockwell International Corporation to fill with sodium and creep‐test three small cylindrical heat pipes of Inconel 718 for a period of 1000 hours each. This report documents the design and the construction methods that were used at NASA Lewis to fabricate these heat pipes. Of particular importance in the heat pipe construction was the installation of the screen wicking by using an expandable mandrel and differential thermal expansion. This installation technique differs from anything known to have been reported in the heat pipe literature and may be of interest to other workers in the heat pipe field.