Method of both cooling and maintaining the uniform temperature of an extended object

摘要

A general method of cooling and maintaining the uniform temperature of an extended structure is provided with specific application discussed of keeping a superconducting coil at cryogenic temperatures in the presence of external heat loads that may be variable in space and time. The approach embeds the structure to be cooled (208) into the vapor space (108) of a heat pipe assembly (202), which consists of an outer wall (116), a fluid wicking mechanism (110, 114), thermal insulation (118) and a mechanism for heat extraction, such as the cold tip (206) of a cryocooler (204).