Sandia Corporation

Steven K Showalter

Douglas Ray Adkins

James B Moreno

Charles E Andraka

K Scott Rawlinson

Timothy A Moss

Douglas A Loy

Anthony Martino

Stacey A Yamanaka

Jeffrey S Kawola

Heat pipe wick structure wherein a stout sheet of perforated material overlays a high performance wick material such as stainless steel felt affixed to a substrate. The inventive structure provides a good flow path for working fluid while maintaining durability and structural stability independent of the structure (or lack of structure) associated with the wick material. In one described embodiment, a wick of randomly laid &#x2dc;8 micron thickness stainless steel fibers is sintered to a metal substrate and a perforated metal overlay.

Method of manufacturing a heat pipe wick with structural enhancement

Heat pipe wick structure wherein a stout sheet of perforated material overlays a high performance wick material such as stainless steel felt affixed to a substrate. The inventive structure provides a good flow path for working fluid while maintaining durability and structural stability independent of the structure (or lack of structure) associated with the wick material. In one described embodiment, a wick of randomly laid &tilde;8 micron thickness stainless steel fibers is sintered to a metal substrate and a perforated metal overlay.

Heat pipe wick with structural enhancement

A dried gel material sterically entrapping nanoclusters of a catalytically active material and a process to make the material via an inverse micelle/sol-gel synthesis. A surfactant is mixed with an apolar solvent to form an inverse micelle solution. A salt of a catalytically active material, such as gold chloride, is added along with a silica gel precursor to the solution to form a mixture. To the mixture are then added a reducing agent for the purpose of reducing the gold in the gold chloride to atomic gold to form the nanoclusters and a condensing agent to form the gel which sterically entraps the nanoclusters. The nanoclusters are normally in the average size range of from 5-10 nm in diameter with a monodisperse size distribution.

Encapsulation of nanoclusters in dried gel materials via an inverse

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Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Steven K Showalter