The inside of a heatpipe

[SK-1]

Found these over at Frostys. I always wondered lol

 

[3dsage]

Cool so heatpipes, arent all teh same. Wonder how each design effect cooling efficiency.

 

[Mussels]

yep, they all vary.

Thermalright use these ones, but looks more like a powder than wires by the time i cut it open

 

[department76]

i thought there was some chemistry involved with the way heatpipes suck heat away, so i'm guessing there's more to it than meets the eye.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

I've cut several heat pipes open, from several manufactueres, Evercool, Thermalright, Thermaltake, Coolermaster, Zalman. The one with the braided cord seems to be the one most often used, my geuss is because it's the cheapest to make.

i thought there was some chemistry involved with the way heatpipes suck heat away, so i'm guessing there's more to it than meets the eye.

Well the basic pricipal is based on the fact heat rises and cold sinks. The heat is sucked up from the base of the cooler and is cooled by the fans on the heatsink, and then falls back down to the bottom to repeate the process. There is a silver liquid in them, it actually looks alot like liquid mercury, but it's not, now what it is, I'm not exactlly sure what it is.

 

[Steevo]

You can build your own and they will be more efficient. Use freon, thick wall copper pipe, and expansion bulb, one way valve, and capilary tube.


I saw a site a few years abo where a guy made his own and with a little air movement he was able to cool a massive P2 overclock on a coppermine.

 

[Fourstaff]

The core heats up the metal liquid inside, it moves up the powdered/braided/etc cord to the fins to release their heat by capillary action. If I am not wrong, the Vapor-X technology centers about evaporating the coolant inside, the gas moves towards the fins and reliquidify after losing their heat and moves back to the core contact are.

 

[Hayder_Master]

yep, they all vary.

Thermalright use these ones, but looks more like a powder than wires by the time i cut it open

http://img.techpowerup.org/100113/Capture114.jpg

i guess xigamtic also same thing

 

[DirectorC]

Ah and this whole time I thought they were solid. I really wasn't taking the word 'pipe' literally!

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Ah and this whole time I thought they were solid. I really wasn't taking the word 'pipe' literally!

LOL, sometimes literal interpritation isn't always a bad thing.

 

[warup89]

awesome threat, i always wanted to see the insides of a heat pipe. Although I was waiting to see to liquid around it after you opened them, what happened did the liquid evaporated as soon as you opened it?

 

[pantherx12]

Yes you just hear hissing once you make a hole, it stinks the stuff inside lol.

My heatpipes didn't look like any of these, they were literally pipes nothing more.

 

[Mussels]

awesome threat, i always wanted to see the insides of a heat pipe. Although I was waiting to see to liquid around it after you opened them, what happened did the liquid evaporated as soon as you opened it?

they use such a tiny amount it turns to gas almost instantly.

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

Wow.... and not at the pictures, just the misinformation. No there is no liquid metal inside these types of heatpipes. Sure there is a sodium potassium one that they call liquid metal that's on sale for a few hundred $ but these normal ones almost always use distilled water at a very low pressure. The lowered pressure also lowers the boiling point of water which you want so the water at the hot spot, the CPU, turns to gas (vaporization) at a much lower temperature than 100C. This state change requires lots of energy (which is given by the CPU as heat), this is how the heat gets transfered from the CPU. The gas is now at a higher pressure at this hot spot so it flows to the low pressure end of the heatpipe (the cool side) and this is how the heat flows. Heatpipes do work optimally if the cool end is higher than the hot end so the hot vapor will rise and gravity will help pull the condensed liquid back down to the hot end but since the pressure differential really is the driving force they will work in any orientation. The wicking material you see on the insides of the pipes (wires mesh, capillary action / this is the one with the striations on the inside of the pipe, sintered powder something or other, there's a few of them as you can see from the pics) is what pulls the liquid back down to the higher pressure end (hot end) and the cycle repeats.

Edit: One of many links explaining with pictures the action giong on inside http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mini,583-8.html
Even though they got it wrong when they state "the end dissipating heat must always be placed higher than the one collecting heat from the CPU."