Composition and efficiency of heatpipes.

[Switch7]

Well, let?s have it, are they solid or is there something within them? What of efficiency and what kind of applications are filled by them?

 

[Jarhead]

Most are not "solid", but some are "solid" being filled with sodium metal, utilized for transferring heat in some jet engines.

The type used in PC applications are not solid. They are basically a copper pipe, with a wicking structure inside, some water put inside, under a vacuum.

Their efficiency in transferring heat can be 1000x times solid copper.

In low volume, they typically cost 5-8 dollars.

For computers, they are used in servers to transfer heat to plenums, to spread heat nicely in a heatsink, and in higher end laptops to distribute heat over a large area for better removal.

They can be made at home, and I had a lot of fun learning to make them.

My next step is to make a sinstered copper wick.