The purpose of this paper is to describe a developing and potentially revolutionary technology for micromachining arrays of micro heat pipes in single crystalline semiconductor silicon in order to fabricate light weight waste‐heat radiator panels. This approach results in excellent thermal conductivity to weight ratios using silicon as a base material. Micro heat pipes have been built using water as the working fluid, for low temperature (50 °C–70 °C) applications. However, for high temperature radiator panels, liquid metals will be used as the working fluid. Fabrication techniques for building liquid‐metal micro heat pipes are extensions of the general procedures used for water micro heat pipes. Additional requirements include the lining of the heat pipes with a non‐reactive material. The modifications of the general procedure ad the difficulties involved in building liquid‐metal micro heat pipes are addressed in this paper.
Liquid‐metal micro heat pipes incorporated in waste‐heat radiator panels
Proceedings of the tenth symposium on space nuclear power and propulsion ; 1993 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 271 , 1 ; 551-557
1993-01-10
7 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
SODIUM , THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY , LOADING , SILICON , LIQUID METALS , POTASSIUM , MONOCRYSTALS , RADIATORS , MICROMACHINING , HEAT PIPES , MACHINING , CHEMICAL REACTIONS , CLOSURES , FABRICATION
Liquid-Metal Micro Heat Pipes Incorporated in Waste-Heat Radiator Panels
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1993
|COMPOSITE HEAT PIPES AND SANDWICH PANELS, RADIATOR PANELS, AND SPACECRAFT WITH COMPOSITE HEAT PIPES
European Patent Office | 2020
|Composite heat pipes and sandwich panels, radiator panels, and spacecraft with composite heat pipes
European Patent Office | 2018
|COMPOSITE HEAT PIPES AND SANDWICH PANELS, RADIATOR PANELS, AND SPACECRAFT WITH COMPOSITE HEAT PIPES
European Patent Office | 2017
|European Patent Office | 2018
|