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Novel Wick Structures for Improved Heat Pipe Performance

Award Information
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Branch: N/A
Contract: NNX11CG19P
Agency Tracking Number: 106025
Amount: $99,998.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: X3.04
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2010
Award Year: 2011
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2011-02-18
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2011-09-29
Small Business Information
780 Eden Road
Lancaster, PA 17601-4275
United States
DUNS: 055625685
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Mark North
 Principal Investigator
 (717) 519-3134
 m.t.north@thermacore.com
Business Contact
 Nelson Gernert
Title: VP Engineering
Phone: (717) 519-5817
Email: n.j.gernert@thermacore.com
Research Institution
 Stub
Abstract

Heat pipes are commonly used for transporting heat over relatively long distances with very low temperature drop. One of the limitations of heat pipes is the capillary limit, which states that the sum of pressure drops of the working fluid cannot exceed the capillary head developed by the wick. Since most of the working fluid pressure drop is incurred in flow through the wick, it is important to reduce the wick resistance as much as possible while still being able to transport the required thermal load.All heat pipes made today have the same wick throughout the heat pipe. This facilitates manufacture, however it causes a great deal more resistance to liquid flow than is minimally required. By breaking the wick up into several different regions in which the wick properties are different, a more optimal stepwise wick is proposed. Preliminary calculations done by the PI indicate that the capillary limit of a heat pipe can be increased by a factor of 2x to 3.5x, depending on the number of discrete steps the wick is divided into. The proposed program aims to demonstrate the improvement in capillary limit experimentally.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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