Developed a facility to measure the capillary performance of heat pipe wicks.

A wick is automatically lowered until it contacts the liquid, the rate of absorption is measured using mass balances and an infra-red camera.

Interfaced measurement devices with MATLAB for automatic data recording and processing.

Developed live meniscus tracking using MATLAB and an IR camera.

Stepper motors programmed using G-code and C++.

Use of mathematically modelling and curve fitting methods.

Fully automated system capable of 0.1 mm positional accuracy and liquid surface detection.

Achieves repeatability of experiments with <1% error.