Week 1 of the term marked the beginning of our freshman design project. After forming groups, we decided to begin research into heat pipes and their many forms and applications. While each group member was currently studying a different discipline of engineering, and had a varied base of knowledge and expertise, none of us had any knowledge on heat pipes and how they worked.
We embraced the challenge of starting from a weak knowledge base and building up our understanding through research and collaboration. A majority of the week 1 lab was spent learning about how heat pipes worked, what they were made of, and their many common applications. We were quite surprised at not only their simplicity but how common they were in our daily lives, in everything from laptops to air conditioners. It was amazing that so simple a device, one that required no moving parts or external power, could be still so widely used in the many products we encounter.
After building a sufficient knowledge base, we had to consider the application of our final product. We learned that copper/water heat pipes - copper pipes with water as the working fluid - were not only the cheapest and safest to work with but were the most effective for the temperature ranges in which we would be conducting our analysis. The most common application for copper/water heat pipes is in electronics cooling. Small pipes can be used in laptops to move hot air to the fans where it can exit the device. Larger ones are often used in server farms where the heat needs to be transferred away from the servers to a heat sink (such as water) located elsewhere. One can easily see the usefulness of a heat transport device like a heat pipe when the location of a cooler or other heat sink so close to electronic devices would simply not be feasible.
Because of the minute size and complexity required for prototyping a heat pipe for a laptop or other small device, we decided to construct a larger one (about 3 ft in length) that we would be able to more easily analyze towards the end of the course. In a way, the heat pipe we construct can act as a proof of concept of the effectiveness of a copper/water heat pipe itself, which can be bent and scaled as needed for different applications. It is for this reason that we decided to insert a wick into the interior of the pipe to facilitate condensation. Even though vertically oriented heat pipes can operate on gravity alone, the wick is there to show that the same pipe could be used in nonvertical applications and still work to the same or similar effectiveness as analyzed in the lab.
Periodically throughout the next ten weeks, as well as in the final report and presentation, we will take time to discuss how a certain feature of our prototype can be easily integrated into different electronics applications. While we are simply testing the effectiveness of the materials alone, we want to continue to develop our understanding of how a basic heat pipe can be easily modified to serve a very specific purpose.
Going forward, we hope to continue to further our understanding of the many uses and applications of heat pipes. We will continue to keep you updated on our weekly progress, as well as any other notable findings or events as they might occur on our journey to prototype a copper/water heat pipe. We will also begin to post pictures to document our progress along the way.
-- Alec, Tran, Matt, and Shjon
We embraced the challenge of starting from a weak knowledge base and building up our understanding through research and collaboration. A majority of the week 1 lab was spent learning about how heat pipes worked, what they were made of, and their many common applications. We were quite surprised at not only their simplicity but how common they were in our daily lives, in everything from laptops to air conditioners. It was amazing that so simple a device, one that required no moving parts or external power, could be still so widely used in the many products we encounter.
After building a sufficient knowledge base, we had to consider the application of our final product. We learned that copper/water heat pipes - copper pipes with water as the working fluid - were not only the cheapest and safest to work with but were the most effective for the temperature ranges in which we would be conducting our analysis. The most common application for copper/water heat pipes is in electronics cooling. Small pipes can be used in laptops to move hot air to the fans where it can exit the device. Larger ones are often used in server farms where the heat needs to be transferred away from the servers to a heat sink (such as water) located elsewhere. One can easily see the usefulness of a heat transport device like a heat pipe when the location of a cooler or other heat sink so close to electronic devices would simply not be feasible.
Because of the minute size and complexity required for prototyping a heat pipe for a laptop or other small device, we decided to construct a larger one (about 3 ft in length) that we would be able to more easily analyze towards the end of the course. In a way, the heat pipe we construct can act as a proof of concept of the effectiveness of a copper/water heat pipe itself, which can be bent and scaled as needed for different applications. It is for this reason that we decided to insert a wick into the interior of the pipe to facilitate condensation. Even though vertically oriented heat pipes can operate on gravity alone, the wick is there to show that the same pipe could be used in nonvertical applications and still work to the same or similar effectiveness as analyzed in the lab.
Periodically throughout the next ten weeks, as well as in the final report and presentation, we will take time to discuss how a certain feature of our prototype can be easily integrated into different electronics applications. While we are simply testing the effectiveness of the materials alone, we want to continue to develop our understanding of how a basic heat pipe can be easily modified to serve a very specific purpose.
Going forward, we hope to continue to further our understanding of the many uses and applications of heat pipes. We will continue to keep you updated on our weekly progress, as well as any other notable findings or events as they might occur on our journey to prototype a copper/water heat pipe. We will also begin to post pictures to document our progress along the way.
-- Alec, Tran, Matt, and Shjon
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