Oct 16 2009
Metafoam announces that, following extensive tests with partners as well as with a third party thermal management test specialist, heat pipes using copper foam wick structures developed by Metafoam achieve superior dry-out results compared to regular sintered copper powder wick-based heat pipes. For single 90 degrees bend heat pipes of 250 millimeters in length, with an outside diameter of 6 millimeters, flattened to 3 millimeters, average dry-out was 72 watts while some heat pipes reached a dry-out of over 120 watts. This average dry-out result represents an improvement of at least 65% compared to standard sintered copper powder heat pipes.
"We are very pleased by these excellent results", said Dominic Pilon, Founder and CTO of Metafoam. "After several years of research and development, we have reached our vision of using our open-cell copper foams as a replacement to sintered copper powder wicks by providing much improved thermal management capabilities. Metafoam's wicks enable the development and production of longer, thinner heat pipes to answer the future requirements of the electronic cooling industry", added Mr. Pilon.
Metafoam's metal foams are manufactured through a unique proprietary process licensed from the National Research Council of Canada. This process highly enhances the porosity and pumping speed of copper foam wicks compared to other wick structures. These unique advantages are particularly fitted for wick applications found in the electronic cooling industry by improving dry-out, Q-max, and thermal resistances. Moreover, heat pipes and thermal modules manufacturers do not have to change their current manufacturing processes since Metafoam's copper foam can be shaped and adapted to existing constraints and designs.
"The tests results obtained in the last 12 months clearly show that it is possible to replace one 8 millimeters or two 6 millimeters sintered powder wick heat pipes by one 6 millimeters copper foam wick heat pipe using Metafoam's technology", said Vincent Guyaux, President and CEO of Metafoam. "This means lower production costs and enhanced space usage for thermal modules and electronics systems manufacturers and designers", added Mr. Guyaux.
Metafoam Technologies will be present at the AMD Technical Forum and Exhibition on October 20th 2009 in Taipei, Taiwan.