Project Overview

Due to the potential for animal water troughs to freeze in the winter, a heat pipe system could be used to keep the water from freezing. For the heating system to work, a series of heating pipes are joined together to absorb heat from the sunlight and heat the water. The heat pipe involves a double-layer vacuum insulated glass tube as the outer shell. Within the tube is a copper heat pipe with a metallic heat fin to increase the heat transferred to the heat pipe. Inside the heat pipe is the working fluid, water. As the temperature increases the water vaporizes and transfers the heat up the pipe to a manifold, which transfers heat to the trough water. The water then condenses and circulates back through the pipe.

Background Information

A heat pipe is a heat transfer device that works on the principles of thermal conductivity and phase transition, combined, to efficiently manage the transfer of heat between two solid interfaces. Heating pipes contain a working fluid that evaporates at the heating end of the system, moves to the condensation part of the envelope, and then releases the heat and travels back to the hot part of the device via capillary action. The working fluid, in this case water, transfers heat by evaporation and condensation, and its operating temperature will be at minimum above 25 degrees Celsius. The glass layer around the pipe allows the system to absorb heat from all directions with the same effectiveness and would be added to the system after all other fabrication. A glass layer also allows the sunlight to better reach and heat up the copper pipe.The copper pipe provides the best conductivity for the system. An aluminum sheet on the outside of the pipe will best collect and transfer heat absorbed from sunlight and other external sources. On the inner layer of the pipe a layer of wire screen mesh will transport the water through capillary action, and conduct heat from one end of the pipe to the other. The wick will be held against the walls of the pipe with tension created by the mesh itself.