TABLE OF CONTENTS The heat pipe differs from the thermosyphon by virtue of its ability to transport heat against gravity by an evaporation condensation cycle. It is, however, important to realise that many heat pipe applications do not need to rely on this feature, and the Perkins tube, which predates the heat pipe by several decades and is basically a form of thermosyphon, is still used in heat transfer equipment. The Perkins tube must therefore be regarded as an essential part of the history of the heat pipe.
Angier March Perkins was born in Massachusetts, USA at the end of the eighteenth century, the son of Jacob Perkins, also an engineer [1]. In 1827, A.M. Perkins came to England, where he subsequently carried out much of his development work on boilers and other heat distribution systems. The work on the Perkins tube, which is a two-phase flow device, is attributed in the form of a patent to Ludlow Patton Perkins, the son of A.M. Perkins in the mid-nineteenth century. A.M. Perkins, however, also worked on single-phase heat distribution systems, with some considerable success, and although the chronological development has been somewhat difficult to follow from the papers available, the single-phase systems preceded the Perkins tube, and some historical notes on both systems seem appropriate.
The catalogue describing the products of A.M. Perkins & Sons Ltd, published in 1898, states that in 1831 A.M. Perkins took out his first patent for what is known as Perkins system of heating...
