Determination of Wicking Properties of Compressible Materials for Heat Pipe Applications

摘要

An experimental program was conducted to develop techniques for determining the wicking characteristics of nonrigid materials for potential use in heat pipes. The principal quantities of interest are effective pore size (to calculate a driving potential for capillary pumping of liquids) and permeability (to establish resistance to liquid flow). Compressible wicking materials do not readily lend themselves to some of the more conventional procedures used for determining flow properties as, e.g., in measuring permeability by forcing a liquid through a rigid, porous material after which flow rate and pressure drop measurements are used to calculate permeability. Consequently, other methods were investigated. Experiments were conducted with woven sleeving to determine the wicking characteristics mentioned above. Results of these tests are presented and compared with performance predicted from theory. (Author)