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Heat Pipe Demo

SKU #HP-100
Availability: In Stock
It is Super Hot and Super Cool!


Hold the end of each piece of copper in each hand and immerse the ends into a container of hot water or ice water. It is amazing how quickly heat transfers in the heat pipe and how slowly it transfers in the solid copper. Heat pipes are used in laptop computers and other devices for cooling. They work on the principle of the heat capacity of water and a wick. Explanation included. 5.5" (13.9 cm) long by 3/16" in diameter (0.4 cm).


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Heat Pipe: a device that transfers heat with great efficiency- as demonstrated by this fantastic kit from @educational_innovations. Here a liquid crystal goes from green (room temp) to black (near freezing) showing the heat transfer to a piece of ice through a heat pipe (top) and a similar sized piece of solid copper rod (bottom). As you can see the heat pipe cools much faster than the copper rod even though copper is an excellent conductor of heat. The heat pipe is a thin shell of copper that surrounds a tube of sponge like material filled with some water vapor and sealed with a low pressure inside. The heat is transferred from one end to the other by the phase transition of water- at the warm end water in the sponge evaporates into vapor absorbing heat energy, the vapor travels down the hollow core to the cold end where it condenses into liquid releasing heat energy. The water is wicked by the sponge to the warm end and the process repeats. Heat pipes like this one pull heat away from the CPUs in modern computers preventing them from melting. The amazing heat transfer ability is clearly felt in the fingertips if one places the copper rod and heat pipe into a glass of ice water-the heat pipe immediately gets cold! Follow the link in my profile for info on where the buy this heat pipe demo and other amazing items featured here on @physicsfun. #physics #physicstoy #physicsfun #thermodynamics #heat #heatpipe #physicsdemo #liquidcrystal #thermometer #heattransfer #conductivity #phase #phasetransition #latentheat #science #scienceexperiment #scienceisawesome

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