Week 1 - April 5, 2017
In week 1, the group discussed the type of heat pipe we would design for this project. Through the discussion, we decided to use copper as the base material for the pipe and water as the working liquid. These materials are cheap to acquire and efficient to use in the design of the heat pipe. We created this blog to document our progress throughout the course of the project. Along with the blog, the project proposal was created to show all of the components of our design process. We consulted students who have built heat pipes before and researched more information and details in order to make the heat pipe.
Week 2 - April 12, 2017
In week 2, the group conducted, even more, research about heat pipes and made plans to acquire the materials needed for the heat pipe. We met up and decided that the best course of action for acquiring the materials would be to order it online. It was a bit difficult to decide where to purchase the materials from but we concluded that we would buy them from Home Depot. The pipe and cap will be bought at Home Depot while the wick will be bought on Amazon. Afterward, we chose which part of the final report each of us are responsible for. It was better to know beforehand in order to be well prepared when the time comes.
Week 3 - April 18, 2017
In week 3, the group was able to gather some of the materials needed to begin construction of the heat pipe. During our meeting for the week, we selected and sketched out an image of what we wanted our prototype to look like. On examining the materials we had, we discovered that we needed more copper wick to properly cover the inner area of the copper wire. Due to this minor setback, we had to order more of the wick thus delaying our time to begin construction. We also decided on a specific time to begin construction of our heat pipe after obtaining the rest of the materials.
Week 4 - April 26, 2017
In week 4, we made a prototype of the heat pipe in Creo. This design utilizes the materials we have excluding the copper wicks inside. The wick arrived and progress can be done as soon as we all are available. Unfortunately, our group was too busy this week because of classes and exams so we could not do anything outside of the lab. During this week, we did some more research and made a schedule of what we would do for the next two weeks. We also stretched the copper wicks to make them have bigger pores to increase the efficiency of the process within the pipe. |
| Cero design of the proposed Heat Pipe |
Week 5 - May 3, 2017
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| Pore Size Difference |
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| Wick Size Difference Week 6 - May 10, 2017
At our meeting this week we braided the individual opened wicks to form three wider wicks. We were also able to buy a two-piece screw thread part with the intention joining the copper pipe to the cap. To do so, we cut a small piece off the main pipe and soldered one of its ends to a cap and the other end to one of the threads. We then did the same to the longer pipe - screw on one end, a cap on the other. Our obstacle this week was finding a way to attach the wick to the internal part of the pipe. At first, we tried to solder a single wick braid to the inner pipe but it was too thin so it fell off. As a result, we decided to make a larger braid of our three wick pieces to increase its thickness and surface area. We were able to solder the large braid into the smaller piece of the pipe.
Large braided wick
Wick soldered to the smaller end of the copper pipe
Week 7 - May 17, 2017
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In this week, we started to test the infrastructure of our heat pipe by filling the insides with water to identify any sort of leakage. Fortunately, there were no signs of leaks. Afterward, we went to test the heat pipe's efficiency and effectiveness at the heating stations that was set up during today's lab. During the first test, the pipe was held horizontally. The results were not so great as the temperature at the cool end of the pipe barely changed. The second test had the pipe in a diagonal position. The results were minuscule but the change happened. The only problem that we could think of that causing this was that the cap was not tightened enough. This would potentially cause the heat within the system to escape.
Week 8 - May 24, 2017
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In week 8 we continued to test the pipe. Because the change in temperature was so small, we concluded that the information collected would be insufficient data. There were not many distinguishable points that would reflect the pipe's capability to transfer the heat. Later on in the week, we tried to test the pipe again but the instructor suggested that we not test at that time without checking the pressure. He believed it was dangerous to continue with the project at that time so we decided to write our final report. We recorded information in the report from the entire term but there is more to be added still.
Week 9 - May 31, 2017
This week we focused solely on testing the pipe. We carried out two different tests to compare final results for our report and presentation. We filled about a third of the pipe with water, wrapped the screw threads with Teflon tape and then closed it with a wrench. We then held the pipe at an elevated angle with the clamp and then placed a source of heat at the lower end of the pipe containing the water. We measured the temperature of both ends of the pipe to see if the transfer of thermal energy was really taking place. We have a rather thick pipe so this experiment took us about 30 minutes to observe substantial results. After collecting all the data we were able to create our final report and presentation.
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| Testing of the pipe |
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| Results after testing |
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