Abstract
Due to an excellent temperature flattening ability, annular sodium heat pipes operating from 500 °C to 1200 °C have been widely used as liners for isothermal furnaces to provide uniform and stable temperature zones. In order to develop the capabilities to fabricate liquid-metal heat pipes, an apparatus for fabricating sodium heat pipes was set up at the National Institute of Metrology (NIM), China. In this paper, the newly developed fabrication apparatus, the detailed procedures for manufacturing sodium heat pipes, the sodium heat pipes, the constructed furnaces for realizing the aluminum freezing point, and their isothermal characteristics are described. The experimental results showed that the biggest temperature differences within 150 mm from the bottom of the thermometer well in an aluminum point cell placed in the sodium heat-pipe furnaces were better than 15 mK, when the temperatures of the furnaces were controlled at approximately 657 °C.
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Yan, X.K., Duan, Y.N., Ma, C.F. et al. Construction of Sodium Heat-Pipe Furnaces and the Isothermal Characteristics of the Furnaces. Int J Thermophys 32, 494–504 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-011-0933-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-011-0933-y