Characterization of Wicking Structures

Saad Ayub Jajja

Dr. Ryan J. Lewis
Professor Ronggui Yang
Professor Y.C. Lee
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Colorado at Boulder, CO 80309-0427
Contacts: Y.C.Lee leeyc@colorado.edu ; 303-492-3393

Motivation and Goals

To completely characterize a wicking structure we need:

1. Capillary Pumping Pressure(PCAP )Determines the ability of the
wick to supply water to the
2. Permeability (K)
evaporator
Indicates the limit when the
3. Dry out Power (Q)
wick can no longer feed water
to
the evaporator
4. Contact Angle ()
Represents
the profile of the
working fluid in the wick

Motivation and Goals

Knowledge of Wick performance parameters will help to

control and optimize the wick fabrication routine.
Electroplating
time and
conditions

Type of screen
mesh and the wick
microstructure
Wick
Performan
ce

TGP Performance

An explicit relationship between the wick performance and

TGP performance can be established. This identifies specific
areas we need to improve in order to enhance the
performance of TGPs.

Existing Test Fixture for determining Dryout Power (Q) and Visualizing the
Wicking Structure.

Existing Test Setup

Development of new wick characterization setup

To determine the values of the capillary pumping pressure

and the permeability of the wicking structure, following
principle is used:
Doing this test against
gravity decouples the
values of Pcap and K in
the governing equation

[1]S. Ravi et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 73 (2014) 13711377

Schematic for the working principle for new test setup

Q vs L (Dry out Power vs the Wicking length) data from this

experiment is fitted to get the values of Pcap and K. A non-linear
least squares fitting routine will be used.

Details of Temperature measurements

Actual Test Setup

Test Setup -Details

Testing Procedure
1

Conclusions

The new setup completely characterizes the wick.

Particularly, the parameters determined by the new setup are :
1. Capillary Pumping Pressure
2. Permeability
3. Dryout Power
4. Contact Angle if we use different working fluids during the test.
This information helps to precisely identify the factors which we can
improve in our fabrication routine therefore optimizing the wicking
structure.
Will provide an opportunity for modeling our wicking structures.
The performance of the wick can be correlated with the performance of the
TGP.