• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.755-759
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• 2016

The use of heat pipes in the electronic telecommunication field is increasing. Among the various types of heat pipes, the thin flat heat pipe has relatively high applicability compared with the circular heat pipe in the electronic packaging application. The thin flat heat pipe based on extrusion fabrication has a simple capillary wick structure consisting of rectangular cross sectional grooves on the inner wall of the pipe. Although the groove serves as a simple capillary wick, and many such grooves are provided on the inner wall, it is difficult for the grooves to realize a sufficiently high capillary force. In the present study, a thin flat heat pipe with a wire bundle was developed to overcome the drawback of poor capillary force in the thin flat heat pipe with grooves, and was evaluated by conducting tests. In the performance test, the thin flat heat pipe with the wire bundle showed a lower thermal resistance of approximately 3.4 times, and a higher heat transfer rate of approximately 3.8 times with respect to the thin flat heat pipe with grooves as the capillary wick respectively. The possibility of using the wire bundle as a capillary wick in the heat pipe was validated in the present study; further study for commercializing this concept will be taken up in the future.