Development of ultra thin plate-type heat pipe with less than 1 mm thickness

Authors are reporting development of ultra thin heat pipe and its performance. The ultra thin heat pipe has thickness less than 1.0 mm and high capability of maximum heat transfer capacity, so that this heat pipe can be installed for narrow space, in which it have been difficult to apply the plate heat pipe so far, of the ultra compact information equipment such as Net Book PC. In this ultra thin heat pipe, the mesh wick which was conducted oxidation-reduction process in high temperature was used in order to obtain sufficient capillary pressure for circulation of the working fluid. The ultra thin heat pipe consists of this mesh wick and the copper container which has thin wall. This structure ensures both sufficient capillary pressure and space of vapor flow. Two kinds of the ultra thin heat pipe were made; one was 1.0 mm thickness and the other was 0.7 mm thickness. These heat pipes had high maximum heat transfer capacity comparing with conventional groove heat pipe. In this paper, we proposed the ultra thin heat pipe which consists of high capillary pressure wick, and experimental investigation is discussed.