Capillary-driven flow analysis of a micro-grooved pipe

Solar energy provides significant opportunities to the power needs. The pipes with micro-grooves etched in the inner wall have been widely taken on the absorber receiver in the parabolic trough and cooling systems for solar thermal absorbers because this sort of pipes improves heat transfer. To support parabolic trough design in solar energy application systems, this study developed a capillary-driven two-phase flow model. The study further examines the influences caused by different micro-grooves, fluids, temperatures, radiuses and widths of groove. Our study concludes that (1) the triangular-microgroove has better influence of the liquid front position than semicircular-microgroove. (2) Water has better influence of liquid front position than ethanol and benzene. (3) The saturated temperature is indirectly proportional to the liquid front position. (4) The length of liquid front position is longer if value of radius is higher. (5) The width of groove does not significantly affect on the liquid front position and velocity. In addition, the proposed mathematical modeling is solved more correctly as compared to previous research. From our results, a good design of the micro-groove pipe can be achieved.