Thermal Characteristics of a Sealed Glass-Water Heat Pipe from 0 °C to 60 °C.

Investigations into the thermal characteristics of glass-water heat pipes from 0 °C to 60 °C were carried out at the National Institute of Metrology (NIM), China. In this paper, studies on a glass-water heat pipe with four thermometer wells are described. The experimental results indicated that the temperature stability and uniformity of the thermometer well of the glass-water heat pipes are within several tenths of a millikelvin when the heat pipes are immersed in a constant-temperature liquid bath, since they have a highly effective thermal conductivity. They are able to maintain a constant temperature by the absorption or liberation of the latent heat of evaporation to attenuate temperature fluctuations of the surroundings. Also, above 0 °C to 30 °C, the temperature stability of the thermometer well of the glass-water heat pipe is better than 0.1 mK for approximately 16 h. The maximum temperature differences among the thermometer wells are less than 5.5 mK when the water heat pipes operate in the range from 0 °C to 60 °C. Therefore, water heat pipes are very promising to improve the performance of liquid baths and to accurately calibrate thermometers by comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]