Patent Application
20250171934
The present invention relates to a woven mesh, and more particularly, to a woven mesh structure that can be cut to size to have clipped edges that prevent warps and wefts of the woven mesh structure from easily loosening and separating from the woven mesh structure.
Following the quick development in the technological industry, most of the currently available 3C electronic products are configured to be light in weight and compact in volume. Meanwhile, all the heat dissipation units mounted in the compact 3D products for heat dissipation and heat transfer must also be reduced in dimensions. For this reason, devices such as heat pipe or vapor chamber that utilize the principle of two-phase flow have received wide attention. The heat transfer performance of the two-phase flow devices is largely relied on the wick structures provided therein.
The wick structure most frequently used in the heat pipe and the vapor chamber is sintered powder, which provides relatively good capillary force but could not be used as a wick structure in some conditions, e.g. in a very thin device or in a device that is to be bent or folded repeatedly in use. In this case, fibrous structure or woven mesh structure is used to replace the sintered powder.
Conventionally, the wick structure in the form of woven mesh includes a plurality of metal or nonmetal wires that extend either in a longitudinal or in a transverse direction and are interwoven. To match actual dimensions or shape in the heat pipe or the vapor chamber, the woven mesh must be cut, stamped, sliced, etc. in the production process, so that the produced woven mesh in the form of a large-area sheet or a woven mesh in roll is cut to match required shape and size. When using a cut tool or a cut die to cut the woven mesh, the cut tool or the cut die is positioned parallel with warps 82 or wefts 84 of the woven mesh, and clipped edges formed on the cut-to-size/shape woven mesh are also parallel with the warps 82 and the wefts 84. In this case, the warps 82 and the wefts 84 that are located closely adjacent the clipped edges tend to easily become loosened and separated from the clipped edges, as shown in
The loosened threads at the edges of the woven mesh would also possibly cause the vapor chamber to lose its airtightness and accordingly, cause leakage of the working fluid from the vapor chamber.
It is therefore desirable to overcome the disadvantage and problem in the conventional woven mesh structure.
To effectively solve the above problem, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a woven mesh structure having a plurality of first and second threads extending in two different weaving directions. The woven mesh structure can be cut to size to have clipped edges. Each of the clipped edge is a curved or a jagged cutting line not parallel with the first and the second threads. Therefore, an inclined angle is formed on each of the first and second threads at their intersections with the clipped edges, preventing the threads located adjacent to the clipped edges from easily loosening and separating from the woven mesh structure.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a woven mesh structure having edges that prevent threads of the woven mesh from easily separating from the woven mesh structure.
To achieve the above and other objects, the woven mesh structure of the present invention includes a plurality of first and second threads, the first and the second threads extending in two different directions are interwoven to form a large-area woven mesh structure; the woven mesh structure can be cut to size and shape, such that each piece of the cut-to-size/shape woven mesh structure has a smaller area and has at least one clipped edge. The clipped edge can be a linear or a non-linear curved line, or a continuous irregular line, such that an inclined angle is formed on the first and the second threads at their intersections with the curved clipped edge. The clipped edge is nonparallel with the first and the second threads to well prevent the first and the second threads located adjacent to the clipped edge from easily loosening and separating from remaining threads.
The woven mesh structure of the present invention may be used as a wick structure in a two-phase flow device. Since each piece of the cut-to-size/shape woven mesh structure has clipped edges that are linear or non-linear curves or continuous irregular lines relative to the first and second threads, the clipped edges are not parallel with the first and the second threads and an inclined angle is formed on each of the first and second threads at their intersections with the clipped edges. As such, the first and second threads located adjacent to the clipped edges are not subjected to loosening and separating from remaining threads on the cut-to-size woven mesh structure.
The structure and the technical means adopted by the present invention to achieve the above and other objects can be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings, wherein
The present invention will now be described with a preferred embodiment thereof. It is understood the accompanying drawings are only illustrative to facilitate easy description of the present invention and not intended to limit the scope of the present invention in any way.
Please refer to
In the preferred embodiment, the first threads 10 are illustrated as warps and the second threads are illustrated as wefts. However, the present invention is not limited to the above arrangements in any way. The first threads 10 extend in a first weaving direction Y (or a longitudinal direction), and the second threads 20 extend in a second weaving direction X (or a transverse direction), such that the first and the second threads 10, 20 are woven in two different weaving directions to sequentially and repeatedly cross and interlace with each other as in the so-called plain weave to produce the woven mesh structure 100 of the present invention having a criss-cross pattern.
The produced woven mesh structure 100 has a plurality of frame portions 40, a plurality of overlapped portions 50, and a plurality of mesh openings 60 formed thereon. In the preferred embodiment, each of the frame portions 40 means a frame formed on the woven mesh structure 100 by two adjacent first threads 10 and two adjacent second threads 20 that are interlaced with one another. Each of the overlapped portions 50 means a location on the woven mesh structure 100, at where one first thread 10 extending longitudinally meets and crosses one second thread 20 extending transversely. More specifically, each overlapped portion 50 is formed by a first part and a second part that face toward and cross with each other. Each mesh opening 60 is enclosed in one frame portion 40 with four overlapped portions 50 located at four corners of the frame portion 40.
The woven mesh structure 100 of the present invention produced in a plant before delivery is in the form of a large-area woven mesh. To meet the actual internal size or shape in a two-phase flow device, such as a heat pipe or a vapor chamber, the large-area woven mesh is processed by cutting it into pieces having required size or shape. More specifically, the cut-to-size woven mesh structure 100 includes a plurality of clipped edges 101 along its outer side. The clipped edges 101 forms a continuous cutting line along the outer side of the woven mesh structure 100 corresponding to each of the first threads 10 and each of the second threads 20. The cutting line may be a linear or a non-linear curve 72, as the continuous curve shown in
The woven mesh structure 100 has been cut to size may have a regular or an irregular shape. When the woven mesh structure 100 of the present invention is used in a two-phase flow device, such as a vapor chamber or a heat, since the clipped edge 101 of the cut-to-size woven mesh structure 100 won't become loosely separated from other first and second threads 10, 20, the cut-to-size woven mesh structure 100 can fully fitly attached to chamber inner wall surfaces of the vapor chamber or pipe inner wall surfaces of the heat pipe to provide good capillary action, helping a liquid-phase working fluid in the vapor chamber or the heat pipe to smoothly and thoroughly flow back to a vaporizing zone in the vapor chamber or the heat pipe.
In brief, each of the clipped edges 101 on the cut-to-size woven mesh structure 100 is formed as a linear or a non-linear curve 72 or as a continuous irregular line, for example, a jagged line. Where the clipped edge intersects with either the first or the second threads 10, 20 would have an inclined angle formed thereat, such that the clipped edge 101 is always not parallel with the first and the second threads 10, 20. With this arrangement, any of the first and the second threads 10, 20 located at the clipped edges 101 would not become loosely separated from other portions of the cut-to-size woven mesh structure 100 that are located farther away from the clipped edges 101, and it is able to effectively improve the problem in the conventional woven mesh that the large-size mesh is clipped in directions parallel with the warps and the wefts to provide small-size meshes, which leads the outer threads of the cut meshes located near the clipped edges to easily loosen and separate from the inner threads, as shown in
The present invention has been described with a preferred embodiment thereof and it is understood that many changes and modifications in the described embodiment can be carried out without departing from the scope and the spirit of the invention that is intended to be limited only by the appended claims.
