Heat Pipe Overview: Wakefield-Vette

Fluid Phase Change applications, often referred to as “re-circulating,” use closed loop heat pipes to transfer heat quickly through evaporation and condensation within the heat pipe. Because of their high thermal efficiency, heat pipes are often designed into advanced heat sink technologies when increased thermal density or physical size restrictions exist.

Heat pipes are a transport mechanism to move heat from the hot source to an area where the heat can be dissipated. Heat pipes do not actually dissipate the heat and are therefore incorporated into many different types of heat sinks as helpers. A heat pipe is a copper tube with an internal wick structure that is sealed on both ends with a small amount of water inside. As heat is applied to the pipe, the water will boil and turn to a gas, which then travels to the colder section of the heat pipe where it condenses back to a liquid. It is the evaporation and condensing of the water that forms a pumping action to move the water (and thus the heat) along the pipe.