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Assuming the dissipating plates are aluminum, how are we going to put grooves in it for the heat pipes?
Typically, for ev battery boxes, and assuming we're going with a horizontal orientation, at what angle are the pipes usually at?
We will probably have to bend the heat pipes, what's the safest method for bending these pipes without damaging them? (assume we're using copper heat pipes with water inside)
Answer: The best way we can put grooves in our dissipating plates of aluminum is to make them in our machine shop. We can create the grooves in the aluminum plate through the Mill machine (or any other applicable machine we have). Assuming we are using copper heat pipes with water inside, we can most likely just use a pipe bender to bend the pipes to fit within the grooves. This method of bending should work with flat (what we will most likely use) and round sintered heat pipes. While using the pipe bender, it may be necessary to also anneal the heat pipes (heating them up) so that they can be easier to bend. When doing this, the working liquid should not be inside the pipe and we need to be careful of the copper hardening, which can make the heat pipe explode (because of all the working chemicals inside). It is important to note that increasing the angle of our bends will gradually reduce the thermal conductivity of the heat pipes. However, considering our application where the heat pipes will not need much of an angle within the heating/dissipating plates, this should not be much of an issue.
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