The experimental study on flat plate heat pipe of magnetic working fluid

An effective thermal spreader can achieve uniform heat flux distribution and thus enhance heat dissipation of heat sinks. Flat plate heat pipe is one of the highly effective thermal spreaders. Magnetic fluid is liquid and can be moved by the force of magnetic field. Therefore, the magnetic fluid is suitable to be used as the working fluid of flat plate heat pipes which have a very small gap between evaporation and condensation surfaces. We prepared a disk-shaped wickless flat plate heat pipe, and the distance between evaporation and condensation surfaces is only 1 mm. From experimental study, the effect of heat flux and working fluid ratio on the performance of flat plate heat pipe is presented. Also we compared the experimental results between the performance of water and magnetic fluid as working fluids.     

Theoretical modelling of miniature loop heat pipe

Development in the design and thermal performance of the loop heat pipes (LHPs) demands the corresponding improvement in the theoretical modeling capabilities of these devices. In this paper, mathematical model for assessing the thermal performance of the miniature LHPs (mLHPs) on the basis of the operating temperature and thermal resistance of the loop has been discussed in detail. In order to validate the theoretical model, a mLHP with the flat disk shaped evaporator, 30 mm in diameter and 10 mm thick, was developed and tested with nickel and copper wick structure. By comparison with experimental results, it was found that the theoretical model was able to predict the evaporator temperature and loop thermal resistance very well and within the uncertainties imposed by the underlying assumptions. The mathematical model can be used to validate the design of the mLHP and verify whether the proposed design is consistent with the maximum heat load capacity required for the intended application. In addition to this, the model can assists in understanding and refining the outcomes of the experimental studies.     

Effect of nanofluids on the performance of a miniature plate heat exchanger with modulated surface

In the present work, the effect of the use of a nanofluid in a miniature plate heat exchanger (PHE) with modulated surface has been studied both experimentally and numerically. First, the thermophysical properties (i.e., thermal conductivity, heat capacity, viscosity, density and surface tension) of a typical nanofluid (CuO in water, 4% v/v) were systematically measured. The effect of surface modulation on heat transfer augmentation and friction losses was then investigated by simulating the existing miniature PHE as well as a notional similar PHE with flat plate using a CFD code. Finally, the effect of the nanofluid on the PHE performance was studied and compared to that of a conventional cooling fluid (i.e., water). The results suggest that, for a given heat duty, the nanofluid volumetric flow rate required is lower than that of water causing lower pressure drop. As a result, smaller equipment and less pumping power are required. In conclusion, the use of the nanofluids seems to be a promising solution towards designing efficient heat exchanging systems, especially when the total volume of the equipment is the main issue. The only drawbacks so far are the high price and the possible instability of the nanoparticle suspensions.     

Convective heat transfer for viscoelastic fluid in a curved pipe

In this paper, fully developed convective heat transfer of viscoelastic flow in a curved pipe under the constant heat flux at the wall is investigated analytically using a perturbation method. Here, the curvature ratio is used as the perturbation parameter and the Oldroyd-B model is applied as the constitutive equation. In the previous studies, the Dirichlet boundary condition for the temperature at the wall has been used to simplify the solution, but here exactly the non-homogenous Neumann boundary condition is considered to solve the problem. Based on this solution, the non-axisymmetric temperature distribution of Dean flow is obtained analytically and the effect of flow parameters on the flow field is investigated in detail. The current analytical results indicate that increasing the Weissenberg number, viscosity ratio, curvature ratio, and Prandtl number lead to the increase of the heat transfer in the Oldroyd-B fluid flow.     

Operational characteristics of miniature loop heat pipe with flat evaporator

Loop heat pipes are heat transfer devices whose operating principle is based on the evaporation and condensation of a working fluid, and which use the capillary pumping forces to ensure the fluid circulation. A series of tests have been carried out with a miniature loop heat pipe (mLHP) with flat evaporator and fin-and-tube type condenser. The loop is made of pure copper with stainless mesh wick and methanol as the working fluid. Detailed study is conducted on the start-up reliability of the mLHP at high as well as low heat loads. During the testing of mLHP under step power cycles, the thermal response presented by the loop to achieve steady state is very short. At low heat loads, temperature oscillations are observed throughout the loop. The amplitudes and frequencies of these fluctuations are large at evaporator wall and evaporator inlet. It is expected that the extent and nature of the oscillations occurrence is dependent on the thermal and hydrodynamic conditions inside the compensation chamber. The thermal resistance of the mLHP lies between 0.29 and 3.2°C/W. The effects of different liquid charging ratios and the tilt angles to the start-up and the temperature oscillation are studied in detail.     

Thermal performance of sintered miniature heat pipes

 Investigation has been carried out on the thermal performance of sintered miniature heat pipes with 3 mm outer diameter. In the theoretical analysis, the influence of wick structure parameters is determined by using the theory of capillary limitation. As a result, the degree of importance is found to be as follows: porosity, powder diameter and thickness of wick structure. In the experiments, heat pipes with sintered dendritic copper powder wicks were fabricated and tested. The maximum heat transfer rate is about 13 W with an effective heat pipe length of 20 cm. By adopting the formulae developed for both sintered spherical powder and fiber and adjusting their proportion, the agreement between experimental results and prediction is found to be quite good in the tested operation temperature range. Received on 26 February 2001     

Experimental investigation on performance of ice storage air-conditioning system with separate heat pipe

An experimental study on operation performance of ice storage air-conditioning system with separate helical heat pipe is conducted in this paper. The experimental system of ice storage air-conditioning system with separate heat pipe is set up. The performance parameters such as the evaporation pressure and the condensation pressure of refrigeration system, the refrigeration capacity and the COP (coefficient of performance) of the system, the IPF (ice packing factor) and the cool storage capacity in the cool storage tank during charging period, and the cool discharge rate and the cool discharge capacity in the cool storage tank, the outlet water temperature in the cool storage tank and the outlet air temperature in room unit during discharging period are investigated. The experimental results show that the ice storage air-conditioning system with separate helical heat pipe can stably work during charging and discharging period. This indicates that the ice storage air-conditioning system with separate helical heat pipe is well adapted to cool storage air-conditioning systems in building.     

Experimental investigation on flow and heat transfer performance of a novel heat fin-plate radiator for electronic cooling

Within the electronics industry, high degree of integration and enhanced performance has led to high heat dissipation electronic devices. This has identified the future development of very high heat flux components. In this paper, a novel and high efficient diffusion welded heat fin-plate radiator (HFPR) was proposed and designed. Various parameters affect the thermal performance of HFPR. The effect of three parameters: the working fluid filling ratios (8% < FR < 70%), the vacuum degrees (0.001 Pa < VD < 0.1 Pa), and the air flow velocities (0.5 m/s < u < 6 m/s) were investigated experimentally. Using distilled water and ethanol as working fluids, a series of tests were carried out to find the influence of the above parameters on steady-state heat transfer characteristics of HFPR. The experimental results indicated that the filling ratio and vacuum degree had a significant influence on thermal performance of HFPR. Also compared with cooling performance using distilled water and ethanol, the HFPR cooling component using distilled water had a stronger heat dissipation capacity for the same filling ratio. The results also can provide a basis for optimal design of HFPR structure.     

Application of nanofluids to a heat pipe liquid-block and the thermoelectric cooling of electronic equipment

Microprocessor power dissipation is constantly increasing. An increase in microprocessor size has also resulted in higher heat fluxes. The growth of information technology has rapidly increased over the past few years, causing an increase in the demand for a microprocessor that has a very high computing ability. The previous generation of central processing units (CPU) had 1.17 billion transistors planted in it, which indicates that a significant amount of heat was generated. The total heat dissipation resulting from a high end CPU is approximately 110-140 W, which will increase if the CPU voltage and frequency increase. Conventional air-cooled cooling systems are no longer adequate to remove these heat fluxes. For a number of applications, direct air-cooling systems will have to be replaced or enhanced by other high performance compact cooling techniques. In this study, the application of nanofluids as the working fluid on a heat pipe liquid-block combined with thermoelectric cooling is investigated. The type and effect of volume concentrations of nanofluids, coolant temperature, and thermoelectricsystem as heat pumps of a PC on the CPU’s temperature are considered. The results obtained from this technique are compared to those from other conventional cooling techniques. The heat pipe liquid-block combined with the thermoelectric system has a significant effect on heat transfer from the CPU. The higher thermal performance heat pipe liquid-block and thermoelectric cooled system with nanofluids proved its potential as a working fluid.     

Effect of porosity and the inlet heat transfer fluid temperature variation on the performance of cool thermal energy storage system

This paper discusses the results of numerical and experimental study of an encapsulated cool thermal energy storage system. The storage system is a cylindrical storage tank filled with phase change material encapsulated in spherical container, placed in a refrigeration loop. A simulation program was developed to evaluate the temperature histories of the heat transfer fluid and the phase change material at any axial location during the charging period. The present analysis aims at studying the influence of the inlet heat transfer fluid temperature and porosity on system performance. An experimental setup was designed and constructed to conduct the experiments. The results of the model were validated by comparison with experimental results of temperature profiles for different inlet heat transfer fluid temperatures and porosity. The results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The results reported are much useful for designing cool thermal energy storage systems.     

Particle size effect on heat transfer performance in an oscillating heat pipe

The effect of Al₂O₃ particles on the heat transfer performance of an oscillating heat pipe (OHP) was investigated experimentally. Water was used as the base fluid for the OHP. Four size particles with average diameters of 50 nm, 80 nm, 2.2 μm, and 20 μm were studied, respectively. Experimental results show that the Al₂O₃ particles added in the OHP significantly affect the heat transfer performance and it depends on the particle size. When the OHP was charged with water and 80 nm Al₂O₃ particles, the OHP can achieve the best heat transfer performance among four particles investigated herein. In addition, it is found that all particles added in the OHP can improve the startup performance of the OHP even with 20 μm Al₂O₃ particles.     

Experimental studies on heat and mass transfer performance of a coiled tube absorber for R134a-DMAC based absorption cooling system

Absorber is an important component in vapor absorption refrigeration system and its performance has greater influence in overall efficiency of absorption machines. Falling film heat and mass transfer in an absorber is greatly influenced by fluid properties, geometry of heat exchanger and its operating parameters. This paper presents on the results of experimental studies on the heat and mass transfer characteristics of a coiled tube falling film absorber, using 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluroethane(R-134a) and N-N Dimethyl Acetamide (DMAC) as working fluids. The effects of film Reynolds number, inlet solution temperature and cooling water temperature on absorber heat load, over all heat transfer coefficient and mass of refrigerant absorbed are presented and discussed. Normalized solution and coolant temperature profiles and refrigerant mass absorbed along the height of absorber are also observed from the experimental results. The optimum over all heat transfer coefficient for R-134a–DMAC solution found to be 726 W/m²K for a film Reynolds number of 350. The R-134a vapour absorption rate is maximum in the normalized coil height of 0.6 to 1.     

Thermal performance of heat pipe with suspended nano-particles

Nanofluids are employed as the working medium for a conventional cylindrical heat pipe. A cylindrical copper heat pipe of 19.5?mm outer diameter and 400?mm length was fabricated and tested with two different working fluids. The working fluids used in this study are DI-water and Nano-particles suspension (mixture of copper nano particle and DI-water). The overall heat transfer coefficient of the heat pipe was calculated based on the lumped thermal resistance network and compared with the heat transfer coefficient of base fluid filled heat pipe. There is a quantitative improvement in the heat transfer coefficient using nano-particles suspension as the working medium. A heat transfer correlation was also developed based on multiple regression least square method and the results were compared with that obtained by the experiment.     

Effect of local pipe bends on pump performance of a small air-lift system in transporting solid particles

The pump performance of a small air-lift system in transporting solid particles is investigated experimentally. Three types of riser pipe were used to examine the effect of local bends of riser pipes on the flow characteristics of a three-phase air–water–solid particles mixture. Two of them were locally S-shaped either below or above a gas injector. The other was vertically straight. Alumina particles of 3 or 5 mm diameter were used as solid particles. It is indicated that the pump performance is appreciably reduced when the pipe bend is above the gas injector. The critical condition under which solid particles are vertically lifted is discussed from a practical viewpoint. In addition, the particle motion in the region of a pipe bend is investigated by photographic observations.     

Comparative study on heat pipe performance using aqueous solutions of alcohols

This paper deals with the performance characterization of heat pipes using an aqueous solution of long chain alcohols like n-Butanol, n-Pentanol, n-Hexanol and n-Heptanol as working mediums. These solutions are called as self-rewetting fluids, since these fluid mixtures possess a non-linear dependence of the surface tension with temperature. A cylindrical heat pipe made up of copper with two layers of wrapped screen is used as a wick material and partially filled with the self-rewetting fluid water mixture and tested for its heat transport capability like thermal efficiency and thermal resistance at different inclinations and input power levels. A number of tests have been performed with heat pipes, filled with various aqueous solutions of alcohols with a concentration of 2?ml/l in de-ionized water (DI water) on volume basis. The results obtained for heat pipes using self rewetting fluids show improved performances, when compared to DI water heat pipes.     

Effect of pore size distribution in bidisperse wick on heat transfer in a loop heat pipe

The purpose of this article is to experimentally investigate the effect of different pore size distributions in bidisperse wicks upon the heat transfer performance in a LHP. Three bidisperse wicks and one monoporous wick were tested in a loop heat pipe. The pore size distributions of the bidisperse wicks were measured, and the results reflected the three different large/small pore size ratios. The experiments showed that the maximum heat load of the monoporous wick reached about 400 W; and the three bidisperse wicks showed improvements on the maximum heat load up to 570 W. For the monoporous wick, the evaporator heat transfer coefficients of 10 kW/m² K and total thermal resistance of 0.19°C/W were achieved at a high heat load of 400 W. For the better bidisperse wick, the evaporator heat transfer coefficients could attain about 23 kW/m² K and total thermal resistance of 0.13°C/W. The results also indicated that a smaller cluster size in a bidisperse structure created a small pore size ratio. It was also found that the bidisperse wick with smaller clusters had a better enhancement in terms of the evaporator heat transfer coefficient.     

On transient flow of a reactive variable viscosity third-grade fluid through a cylindrical pipe with convective cooling

This paper studies the transient flow of a reactive variable viscosity third grade fluid in a cylindrical pipe with convective heat exchange at the pipe surface. It is assumed that exothermic chemical reactions take place in the flow system. The coupled nonlinear partial differential equations governing the problem are derived and solved numerically using an unconditionally stable and convergent semi-implicit finite difference scheme. Both numerical and graphical results are presented and physical aspects of the problem are discussed with respect to various parameters embedded in the system.     

Effect of coolant side heat transfer on transpiration cooling

A simple analysis is described addressing the effect of simultaneous cooling from the back side and from a transpiration flow through a porous wall. The analysis draws from existing approaches and uses simplified formulations for the boundary conditions. Therewith expressions for the non-thermal equilibrium situation and for the overall cooling effectiveness are derived. These parameters are used to estimate the effect of enhanced cooling side heat transfer in combination with transpiration flows. The analysis is extended to situations with two combined layers of porous transpiration cooled materials.