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Effect of stagger angle on capillary performance of microgroove structures with reentrant cavities

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Abstract

Aluminum-based microgroove surfaces with reentrant cavities (MSRCs) were fabricated by two staggered ploughing/extrusion processes to meet the requirements of lightweight phase change heat transfer devices. Five MSRCs with different stagger angles between cavities and microgrooves (MGs) were fabricated to study the effect of stagger angle on capillary performance. Capillary rise and permeability tests were performed on all MSRCs and the results were compared with MGs having the same processing parameters. It was found that MSRCs with smaller stagger angles have higher capillary height, and the maximum enhancement maintained by MSRC45 was about 54.84%. However, MSRCs with larger stagger angles were found to have higher permeability. Therefore, the capillary parameter K·ΔPcap was used as a comprehensive index to evaluate these wicks. MSRC90 and MSRC75 obtained the largest K·ΔPcap values without and with the effect of gravity considered, respectively. Although all MSRCs had a higher capillary rise height than MGs, smaller stagger angles (≤ 60°) seriously reduced the permeability of MSRCs and even resulted in smaller K·ΔPcap value than that of MGs when calculated considering the effect of gravity. Therefore, MSRCs with larger stagger angles (≥ 75°) may be the optimum wicks due to the good balance between capillary pressure and permeability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory of Functional Structure and Device in Guangdong, School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    YaLong Sun, FuYe Liang, Yong Tang, XiaoQian Xi & Shu Yang

  2. College of Mechatronics and Control Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518000, China

    Yong Tang & Heng Tang

  3. School of Machinery and Automation, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430000, China

    Ting Fu

Authors
  1. YaLong Sun
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  2. FuYe Liang
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  3. Yong Tang
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  4. Heng Tang
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  5. XiaoQian Xi
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  6. Shu Yang
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  7. Ting Fu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yong Tang or Heng Tang.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51905352), the Science and Technology Plan of Guangdong, China (Grant No. 2019B090910001), the Basic and Applied Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2020A1515011039), the Basic Research Foundation of Shenzhen (Grant No. JCYJ2019080814400-3701), and the Open Fund of Hubei Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission and Manufacturing Engineering at Wuhan University of Science and Technology (Grant No. MTMEOF2019A02).

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Sun, Y., Liang, F., Tang, Y. et al. Effect of stagger angle on capillary performance of microgroove structures with reentrant cavities. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 64, 1436–1446 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1783-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1783-x

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