Heat pipe research and development in the Americas

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the recent heat pipe research and development efforts in the Americas. After discussing the research and development of high performance monogroove, tapered artery, trapezoidally grooved, dual-slot, double wall artery, ceramic and other specially designed heat pipes, the transient modeling and testing efforts are reviewed for a variety of heat pipes that also includes variable conductance heat pipes and thermosyphons. The application of heat pipes to terrestrial systems is discussed for the heat recovery systems, Rankine and solar systems, fusion reactor core cooling and the thermal control of electronic equipment. The application of heat pipes to space systems includes the thermal control of space station and satellites, and the radiator design of large space power systems. Although many advances have been made in the past few years in the development of high heat transfer performance heat pipes, the heat pipe modeling efforts are not in step with the technological requirements.