Capillary performance of strut-based lattice wicks fabricated using laser powder bed fusion

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) can be used to fabricate porous wicks with customized geometries for two-phase heat transport devices such as heat pipes; LPBF enables integration of these wicks into any two-phase transport device form factor in a single manufacturing step. Strut-based wicks with four...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International communications in heat and mass transfer 2024-12, Vol.159, p.108227, Article 108227
Main Authors: Hasan, Mohamed, Elkholy, Ahmed, Narvan, Morteza, Durfee, Jason, Kempers, Roger
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Additive manufacturing
Capillary wicking
Laser powder bed fusion
Rate-of-rise
Wicked heat pipe
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) can be used to fabricate porous wicks with customized geometries for two-phase heat transport devices such as heat pipes; LPBF enables integration of these wicks into any two-phase transport device form factor in a single manufacturing step. Strut-based wicks with four different unit-cell geometries (simple cubic, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, and fluorite) with different porosities were designed and fabricated using LPBF. The capillary performance of the wicks was characterized using the mass rate-of-rise (m-t) method and quantified in terms of the ratio of permeability to effective pore radius (K/reff). Both unit-cell geometry and porosity significantly affect the capillarity of these strut-based wicks, with K/reff ranging from 0.05 to 1.43 μm, which is commensurate with conventional sintered metal wicks. This is due to a relatively high permeability, ranging from 39 μm2 to 788 μm2, and an effective pore radius ranging from 233 μm to 1022 μm. The simple cubic 52 % and 65.1 % porous wicks exhibited the highest capillary performance with a K/reff of 1.43 μm and 1.31 μm, respectively. These results suggest that modifying the LPBF process for finer feature resolution could result in higher capillarity.
ISSN:0735-1933
DOI:10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2024.108227