Fabrication of sintered wick in micro -grooved pipe

The sintering heat pipe is an ideal component in solving the heat dissipation of high heat flux chips. The heat pipe with sintered wick structure in micro-grooved pipe was featured with low heat resistance, high bond strength and hard to dryout. According to the sintering theory, the manufacturing process of sintered wick could be divided into four phases: reduction phase, sintering starting phase, sintering preservation phase and sintering cooling phase. The sintering temperature, sintering time and sintering atmosphere about fabrication of the innovative sintered wick were also inspected. The result was discovered that 100 mesh spherical copper powders had high porosity and low radial shrinkage at the sintering temperature of 950°C for 3 hours and the mandrel could be easily pulled out. It was also found that the oxidation reduction process could manufacture new micro structure-the segmentation cracks structure on the surface of copper powders.