Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Brown, R. F..
Liquid distributed more evenly in evaporator section. Improved heat pipe contains an artery and wick rolled from stainless-steel screen of 180 mesh (openings about 80 micrometers). Screen material helps to prevent dryout in evaporator section by conducting liquid through hotspots and to vaporchannel wall. Insert reduces incidence of dryout at hotspots or during intervals of general thermal overload.
High rates of heat transfer anticipated. Prototype evaporative cold plate gathers waste heat from equipment mounted on it. Plate made by welding together flanges of several sections of heat pipe. Since plate separates liquid and vapor phases at inlet and outlet ports, eliminates complexities and uncertainties of two-phase flow in zero gravity. On earth, inlet valve enables plate to operate at relatively-large height differences with other plates in same system.
A screen mesh artery supported concentrically within the evaporator section of a heat pipe liquid channel retains liquid in the channel. Continued and uniform liquid feed to the heat pipe evaporation section (20) during periods of excessive heat transfer is assured. The overall design provides high evaporation and condensation film coefficients for the working fluid by means of the circumferential grooves in the walls of the vapor channel, while not interfering with the overall heat transport capability of the axial groove. The design has particular utility in zero-g environments.