Thermal management of high-power systems via aluminum vapor chambers: fabrication and characterization

Abstract

To address challenges in manufacturing and phase-change heat transfer for lightweight, high-performance large-area aluminum vapor chambers (LAVCs) in demanding applications such as aerospace thermal management and battery cooling, this study fabricated a cost-effective LAVC (604 mm × 298 mm) using sintering and brazing. Brazing produced a uniform dendritic structure, ensuring reliable bonding, while sintering formed a multilayer wire mesh wick that reduced thermal resistance. The effects of filling ratio and gravity orientation on thermal performance were systematically investigated. Under lateral orientation, the LAVC performance improved steadily as the filling ratio increased from 80 % to 120 %. In contrast, under vertical orientation, higher filling ratios provided superior performance below 400 W, but beyond this point only the 100 % filling ratio continued to improve, reaching the ultimate power limit. The gravity-assisted vertical LAVC achieved a 560 W heat transfer limit (7× that of an aluminum plate), a minimum thermal resistance of 0.061 K/W, and an effective thermal conductivity of 13,410.4 W/(m·K). Infrared imaging further verified rapid heat spreading, excellent temperature uniformity, and mitigation of hot spots. These results demonstrate that lightweight, large-area LAVCs offer high power-handling capability and stable operation in complex thermal management scenarios.