Heat Pipes

What Is Heat Pipe?

• This is a sealed vessel that is
evacuated and backfilled with a
working fluid, typically in a small
amount.
• The pipe uses a combination of
evaporation and condensation of
this working fluid to transfer heat in
an extremely efficient way.
• For example, many electronics use
this to transfer heat from a chip to a
remote heat sink.
How Heat Pipe Works
Structure Types
• Round Type (lengths of 70-600 mm and diameters of 4-10 mm)
• Flat Type(lengths of 70-500 mm, widths of 4.83-11.41 mm, and
heights of 2-6.5 mm)
Features and Benefits
• Tube material: copper
• Wick structures: grooved or
sintered copper powder
• High thermal conductivity
• Light weight
• Fast thermal response.
Wick Structure
• Grooved
• Sintered Copper Powder
• Screen
Working Fluids
• Over 27 different working fluids.
• The heat pipe working fluid chosen depends on the operating
temperature range of the application.
• Working fluids range from liquid helium for extremely low
temperature applications (-271°C) to silver (>2,000°C) for extremely
high temperatures.
• The most common heat pipe working fluid is water for an operating
temperature range from 1°C to 325°C.
Types of Working Fluid
Attachment Methods
• Press Fitting : Press fitting into tight holes
• Soldering : We need to nickel plate the aluminum. Then we add
solder paste into the grooves and then the heat pipes are inserted
into the grooves.
• Thermal Epoxies : Thermal Expoxies are chosen according to their
thermal conductivity(Ranges from 1 to 6 W/mK)
• Mechanical Fastening : If the heat pipe assembly needs to be
disassembled in the field for maintenance or other purposes, then a
mechanical fastening assembly method should be considered.
Epoxy Bonding
• Most epoxy requires an oven curing process to achieve the desired
bond strength. (Ranges are between 100 and 160oC and the curing
times vary from 30 minutes to an hour; depending on the epoxy
manufacturer)

• Some Expoxy from Digikey :

https://www.digikey.in/catalog/en/search?filters=463920&searchText
=epoxy
• AAVID Epoxy :
https://www.digikey.in/catalog/en/partgroup/thermalbond-
series/87430