The Fabrication and Testing Development of Heat Pipe Wicks: A Review

In order to work efficiently and optimally, heat pipe as a two-phase heat transfer device requires an important component that can be used to improve the thermal performance of heat pipe, namely the capillary wick. It serves the capillary pressure to circulate the working fluid as well as space for vapor-liquid phase change inside the heat pipe. As the time goes by, the wick experiences the development in terms of material, form, fabrication process, and evolution of testing, so that it does not become a limiting factor in the application of heat pipe. The difference in things obtained through the process will produce different results based on the research needs. This paper aims to summarize several experiments about the fabrication process such as sintering, 3D selective laser melting, the addition of alkaline corrosion treatment in extrusion, and the alloying-dealloying treatment, as well as the testing stages of heat pipe wick that have been carried out. The series of testing methods were done to obtain several important thermal parameters namely capillarity, permeability, porosity, pore size distribution, and effective thermal conductivity.