The wick is the most crucial element of loop heat pipes (LHPs). At present, wick materials are limited to copper, stainless steel, nickel, and so on. Little research has been carried out on new wick materials. This paper reports the fabrication of aluminum wicks and performance tests of LHPs using aluminum wicks. Experimental data show that this LHP is capable of transferring a heating load of 130 W, while the thermal resistance is only approximately 0.04 K/W. Then, the experimental data were compared with those for LHPs using a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) wick. Based on the SIMPLE algorithm, a 2-D unsteady-state heat transfer model and a 2-D steady-state flow model of the wicks are established to analyze the effects of wick material, pore size and porosity on the performance of the evaporator. The experimental data for LHPs with PTFE wicks are from the literature. The simulation results show that a PTFE wick can effectively reduce heat leakage, while an aluminum wick has better temperature uniformity and a lower casing temperature. However, wicks with large porosities have lower flow resistance.

灯芯是回路热管 (LHP) 中最关键的元件。目前，灯芯材料仅限于铜、不锈钢、镍等。对新型灯芯材料的研究很少。本文报告了铝芯的制造和使用铝芯的 LHP 的性能测试。实验数据表明，该 LHP 能够传递 130 W 的热负荷，而热阻仅为约 0.04 K/W。然后，将实验数据与使用聚四氟乙烯 (PTFE) 灯芯的 LHP 的数据进行比较。基于SIMPLE算法，建立了灯芯的二维非稳态传热模型和二维稳态流动模型，分析了灯芯材质、孔径和孔隙率对蒸发器性能的影响。带有 PTFE 芯的 LHP 的实验数据来自文献。仿真结果表明，聚四氟乙烯灯芯可以有效减少热量泄漏，而铝芯具有更好的温度均匀性和较低的外壳温度。然而，具有大孔隙率的灯芯具有较低的流动阻力。