Manufacturing of metallic porous structures to be used in capillary pumping systems

Sintered metallic porous structures have an application as capillary structures in two-phase heat transfer loops. In this work the manufacturing procedure of tubular porous structures for capillary pump application is discussed. The application of porous structures on capillary pumping systems requires porosity higher than 40% and pore size diameter lower than 20 µm. Carbonyl nickel powder with particle diameter between 3 and 7 µm and stainless steel AISI316L powder with particle diameter between 1 and 22 µm were used as raw material. Sintering under hydrogen atmosphere was performed both in a resistive furnace and in a plasma reactor. Temperature and time were the modified parameters to obtain suitable porosity and roundness on the samples. The porosity was measured using the Arquimedes Principle (MPIF-42), the roundness was evaluated using a simplified measurement technique of the sample diameter and the pore size distribution was determined by image analysis techniques. Images obtained by Scanning Electronic Microscopy were employed on the image analysis. The sintering parameters selected to manufacture nickel samples were 700 °C and 30 min resulting in a porosity of about 44%. The sintering parameters selected to manufacture stainless steel samples were 1000 °C and 30 min resulting in a porosity of about 40%.