UK Manufactured 3D Printed Sintered Wick Heat Pipes for Embedded Solutions

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This project will evaluate the commercial viability of developing a 3D printed sintered wick heat pipe rugged embedded heat frame.The base unit for evaluating performance in this project will be a modular VPX VITA 48.2 conduction cooled heat frame. This form factor has been selected as it is highly mechanically constrained by the VITA standards and represents a large number of products in the rugged Defence sectors currently on the market.It is intended that solutions developed as part of this project can be replicated on larger modules, or rugged chassis developments for the same industry.Integrated heat pipes are not a new technology for the rugged market, however may developers have struggled to correctly implement them resulting in lower uptake than should be expected considering their maturity. Common problems include poor integration and assembly, or poor pipe quality from supplier.By incorporating the wick structure into a single printed unit, these challenges are removed entirely from the unit and will allow more developer to use and implement these techniques in their products.Additionally, heat pipe supply chains, which almost universally originate in the Far East, are under severe scrutiny from Defence program engagement due to political tensions in the area. For these low volume markets, alternative supply chain costings are prohibitively high which discourages wider implementation of heat pipe technology in products. The low volume, and wick geometry complexity of integrated heat pipe modules lends itself to the development of an additively manufactured alternative.By close of this project, Entropy intend to show that additively manufacture sintered wick modules have both a performance and cost benefit in rugged electronics modules over their traditionally manufactures counterparts. Entropy will have clear steps to commercialisation of these products, and will evaluate further funding including commercial partnership to progress to production ready levels.