Engineering Science and Materials Commons^™

Property Measurements And Evaluation Of Heat Leak, Nathan Race

All Theses

Heat transport in capillary wick structures is an important parameter in loop heat pipe (LHP) design. The purpose of this study was to investigate the conductive heat leak in operating capillary wick structures. The heat leak is the portion of applied heat load conducted through the wick in spite of the convection of working fluid. Four sintered 316 stainless steel wicks were tested for porosity, effective thermal conductivity, pore size, and heat leak. Pore sizes were found to correlate well with the nominal pore size and pores were very narrowly distributed within a size range of approximately 1-10μm. Effective thermal …