Talk:Heat pipe

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[edit] Erroneous Originator

The orginal patent for heat pipes was granted in 1942 to Mr. R. S. Gaugler of the General Motors Corporation. Grover and his teeam made extremely important mathematic advances to heat pipe theory, proposed several key applications and coined the term "heat pipe." However, these advances occured over 20 years after the orginal patent.

[edit] Clarification needed

An anon made the following edit to the article, probably because they couldn't make a new page, (this Talk page.)

Internally, a wick structure overcomes gravitational forces (or because of their absence in the case of space applications - huh? what does this mean? Can someone clarify?).

I have reverted the edit, but the statement seems reasonable. --Charles Gaudette 07:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It should mean that if the heat pipe is tilted with the evaporating end higher than the condensing end, the capillary force exerted by the wick on the liquid is able to drag it higher, contrary to the gravity force, but it's wrong. Almost all heat pipes used in space application cannot work against gravity, unless the inclination is limited to very few mm/m. Heat pipes able to work against gravity do exist, but they have other limitations and are not used on satellites. I have changed the sentence, do you mind fixing my word usage? i am not mothertongue and my english is far from perfect. Thanks, Andrea.gf 10:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe it may be referring to heatpipes used in computer cooling? In certain instances, heatpipes as used in computers may be working against gravity... Nil Einne 17:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article lacks comparitive technological context

This is an article about a cooling technology yet it lacks any citiations of actual SI units with which to measure performance - eg: Thermal conductivity. It also lacks any comparison to other cooling technologys, save for one sentance with an ad-hoc comparison of heat pipes to solid copper (- a typical example instance of where some SI units would be helpful for comparison). How do heatpipes compare with watercooling? Roidroid 06:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You need a physicist to swing by. It's tough to write about it scientifically if you don't know how. :) I'd suggest doing some google searches for better information. But, with regards to water cooling vs. heat pipes, I'd say it's similar but a lot different. Both are relocating the heat to another location. However, heat pipes use evaporative cooling (phase change) whereas water cooling is just moving heat from one place to another via water's impressive heat capacity (relative to air). Been a long time since I had physics though so don't ask for more! --Swaaye 17:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)