Analysis of Structural Parameters of Grooved-Wicksin Micro Heat Pipes Based on Capillary Limits

For great progress in heat pipe technology, a micro heat pipe has become an ideal heat dissipating device in high heat-flux electronic products, and capillary limit is the main factor affecting its heat transfer performance. Based on analyses of capillary limit and currently commonly-used groove structures, this paper built capillary limit models for micro heat pipes with dovetail-groove, rectangular-groove, trapezoidal-groove and V-groove wick structures respectively for theoretical analyses. The analysis results show that better heat transfer performances can be obtained in micro heat pipes with small-angle dovetail (i.e. a sector structure), rectangular and small-angle trapezoidal grooved wick structures when groove depth is 0.2-0.3mm and top-width-to-depth ratio is 1.2-1.5.