Abstract
The thin-wall heat pipe is an efficient heat transfer component that has been widely used in the field of heat dissipation of high-power electronic equipment in recent years. In this study, the orange peel morphology defect of thin-wall heat pipes after bending deformation was analyzed both for the macro-3D profile and for the micro-formation mechanism. The morphology and crystal orientations of the grains and annealing twins were carefully characterized utilizing optical metallography and the electron backscatter diffraction technique. The results show that after high-temperature sintering treatment, the matrix grains of the heat pipe are seriously coarsened and form a strong Goss texture, while certain annealing twins with the unique copper orientation are retained. The distribution of the Schmid factor value subjected to the uniaxial stress indicates that inhomogeneity in the intergranular deformation exists among the annealing twins and matrix grains. The annealing twin exhibits a "hard-oriented" component during the deformation; thus, it plays a role as a barrier and hinders the slipping of dislocation. As the strain accumulates, part of the annealing twins may protrude from the surface of the heat pipe, forming a large-scale fluctuation of the surface as the so-called "orange peel" morphology. The 3D profile shows the bulged twins mostly perpendicular to the drawing direction, about 200-300 in width and 10-20 μm in height.