Design of Miniature Loop Heat Pipe

In the present study, the loop heat pipe (LHP) was miniaturized for application to electronic cooling. According to the capillary limitation, the wick structure parameters that would affect the heat transfer capacity were analyzed theoretically. Among the various wick parameters, this study especially investigated the effect of wick thickness, which has rarely been mentioned in the literature. Here, various thicknesses were analyzed theoretically and then tested experimentally. The results showed that the temperature on the evaporator wall dropped with decreasing wick thickness. This effect would lead to the raising of heat transfer capacity and the descending of thermal resistance. According to the analysis and the practical demand for electronic cooling, a miniature LHP was fabricated with the evaporator outer diameter of 13 mm and the evaporator length of 50 mm. The testing results showed that, at the allowable working temperature of 80 °C, the maximum heat transfer capacity was up to 200 W and the thermal resistance was 0.17 °C/W. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 33(1): 42–52, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/htj.10133