The Effects of Bending on Heat Pipes

Author(s):  
Mahboobe Mahdavi ◽  
Amir Faghri

Abstract A comprehensive three-dimensional numerical model is developed to evaluate the effect of bending on water-copper cylindrical heat pipes. This model distinguishes itself from other models by its ability to uniquely determine the operating pressure of the heat pipe based on the operating and physical conditions. The effects of one 90-degree bend and two 90-degree bends are evaluated on the performance of a heat pipe. Two types of wicks are considered: a screen mesh wick and a sintered powder wick. The obtained results show that bending does affect the vapor pressure drop; however, the changes are not significant when compared to the operating pressure of the heat pipe. If the bending is performed in a manner where the wick is not damaged and the liquid is not blocked from returning to the evaporator, the performance of the heat pipe will not be affected significantly. In addition, if the heat pipe is operating in the horizontal direction, where both evaporator and condenser legs are at the same level, bending does not affect the liquid pressure drop significantly; however, the screen mesh does provide a higher capillary limit. The results also showed that the effects of gravity can be important when bending heat pipes and consideration should be given for this factor. When the bent heat pipe works against gravity, the sintered powder wick heat pipes showed higher capillary limits.

Author(s):  
Imène Saad ◽  
Samah Maalej ◽  
Mohamed Chaker Zaghdoudi

The present work highlights the impact of the working dielectric fluid on the flow and the thermal parameters of an axially grooved flat mini heat pipe (FMHP) submitted to Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) effects. Three dielectric working fluids are considered: pentane, R123, and R141b. A model is developed by considering the Laplace-Young, mass, momentum, and energy balance equations. The numerical results show that the electric field affects the liquid distribution along the heat pipe and helps the condensate to flow back to the evaporator section. Moreover, under the electric field conditions, the vapor pressure drop increases, however, the liquid pressure drop decreases. The effect of the electric field on the liquid velocity depends on the FMHP zone, and the vapor velocity is hardly affected by the EHD effects. Furthermore, lower capillary driving pressures are required to provide the necessary capillary pumping under EHD conditions. Besides, pentane allows for higher vapor pressure drops compared to those obtained with R123 and R141b, while the liquid pressure drops are highest for R123. It is found that with R123, the liquid velocity is higher than that reached with R141b and pentane. It is also demonstrated that the capillary limit increases under EHD conditions, and for R141b, the capillary limit is the highest either in zero-field and EHD conditions. Best heat pipe thermal performances are observed for wide and deep grooves with R141b. Finally, the optimum fill charge allowing the maximum heat transfer capacity is determined for each working fluid and different groove dimensions. It is shown that the optimum fill charge is hardly affected by the electric field whatever the working fluid. R123 requires the highest optimum fill charge, however, the heat transport capacity of the FMHP is the lowest when using this working fluid.


Author(s):  
Jin Zhang ◽  
Harris Wong

Micro heat pipes have been used in cooling micro electronic components. However their effective thermal conductivity is low compared with that of conventional heat pipes. Due to the complexity of the coupled heat and mass transport, and to the complicated three-dimensional bubble geometry inside micro heat pipes, there is a lack of rigorous analysis. As a result, the relatively low effective thermal conductivity remains unexplained. We have conceptualized an idealized micro heat pipe that eliminates the complicated geometry, but retains the essential physics. Given the simplified geometry, many effects can be studied, such as thermocapillary flow, and evaporation and condensation physics. In this talk, we will present the flow field induced by evaporation.


2012 ◽  
Vol 499 ◽  
pp. 21-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xi Bing Li ◽  
Z.M. Shi ◽  
S.G. Wang ◽  
Q.M. Hu ◽  
L. Bao ◽  
...  

For great progress in heat pipe technology, a micro heat pipe has become an ideal heat dissipating device in high heat-flux electronic products, and capillary limit is the main factor affecting its heat transfer performance. Based on analyses of capillary limit and currently commonly-used groove structures, this paper built capillary limit models for micro heat pipes with dovetail-groove, rectangular-groove, trapezoidal-groove and V-groove wick structures respectively for theoretical analyses. The analysis results show that better heat transfer performances can be obtained in micro heat pipes with small-angle dovetail (i.e. a sector structure), rectangular and small-angle trapezoidal grooved wick structures when groove depth is 0.2-0.3mm and top-width-to-depth ratio is 1.2-1.5.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lazarus Godson Asirvatham ◽  
Rajesh Nimmagadda ◽  
Somchai Wongwises

The paper presents the enhancement in the operational limits (boiling, entrainment, sonic, viscous and capillary limits) of heat pipes using silver nanoparticles dispersed in de-ionized (DI) water. The tested nanoparticles concentration ranged from 0.003 vol. % to 0.009 vol. % with particle diameter of <100 nm. The nanofluid as working fluid enhances the effective thermal conductivity of heat pipe by 40%, 58%, and 70%, respectively, for volume concentrations of 0.003%, 0.006%, and 0.009%. For an input heat load of 60 W, the adiabatic vapor temperatures of nanofluid based heat pipes are reduced by 9 °C, 18 °C, and 20 °C, when compared with DI water. This reduction in the operating temperature enhances the thermophysical properties of working fluid and gives a change in the various operational limits of heat pipes. The use of silver nanoparticles with 0.009 vol. % concentration increases the capillary limit value of heat pipe by 54% when compared with DI water. This in turn improves the performance and operating range of the heat pipe.


2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Unnikrishnan Vadakkan ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella ◽  
Jayathi Y. Murthy

A three-dimensional model has been developed to analyze the transient and steady-state performance of flat heat pipes subjected to heating with multiple discrete heat sources. Three-dimensional flow and energy equations are solved in the vapor and liquid regions, along with conduction in the wall. Saturated flow models are used for heat transfer and fluid flow through the wick. In the wick region, the analysis uses an equilibrium model for heat transfer and a Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model for fluid flow. Averaged properties weighted with the porosity are used for the wick analysis. The state equation is used in the vapor core to relate density change to the operating pressure. The density change due to pressurization of the vapor core is accounted for in the continuity equation. Vapor flow, temperature and hydrodynamic pressure fields are computed at each time step from coupled continuity/momentum and energy equations in the wick and vapor regions. The mass flow rate at the interface is obtained from the application of kinetic theory. Predictions are made for the magnitude of heat flux at which dryout would occur in a flat heat pipe. The input heat flux and the spacing between the discrete heat sources are studied as parameters. The location in the heat pipe at which dryout is initiated is found to be different from that of the maximum temperature. The location where the maximum capillary pressure head is realized also changes during the transient. Axial conduction through the wall and wick are seen to play a significant role in determining the axial temperature variation.


1991 ◽  
Vol 113 (4) ◽  
pp. 995-1002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Cao ◽  
A. Faghri

A numerical analysis of transient heat pipe performance including nonconventional heat pipes with nonuniform heat distributions is presented. A body-fitted grid system was applied to a three-dimensional wall and wick model, which was coupled with a transient compressible quasi-one-dimensional vapor flow model. The numerical results were first compared with experimental data from cylindrical heat pipes with good agreement. Numerical calculations were then made for a leading edge heat pipe with localized high heat fluxes. Performance characteristics different from conventional heat pipes are illustrated and some operating limits concerning heat pipe design are discussed.


Author(s):  
Mahboobe Mahdavi ◽  
Amir Faghri

Abstract In the present works, a comprehensive transient numerical model was developed to evaluate the effect of nanofluid on the transient performance of heat pipes. The numerical model solves for compressible vapor flow, the liquid flow in the wick region, and the energy equations in the vapor, wick and wall. The distinctive feature of the model is that it can uniquely determine the heat pipe operating pressure based on the physical and operating conditions of the system. Three nanoparticle types were considered: Al2O3, CuO, and TiO2. The effects of the concentration of nanoparticles (5%, 10%, 20% and 40%) were investigated on the heat pipe response time, thermal resistance, and pressure drop under various operating conditions. The results showed that the use of nanofluid decreased the response time of the heat pipe by the maximum of 27%. It was also discovered that the thermal resistance decreased significantly with an increase in the volume concentration. A maximum reduction of 84%, 82% and 78% in thermal resistance was obtained for Al2O3, CuO, and TiO2, respectively. In addition, the effect of nanoparticles on the liquid pressure drop highly depends on the nanoparticle type and volume concentration.


2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Asias ◽  
M. Shusser ◽  
A. Leitner ◽  
A. Nabi ◽  
G. Grossman

To investigate the feasibility of using heat pipes in airborne systems, heat pipe performance at large axial accelerations in the range of 3–12g was studied experimentally. The heat input chosen corresponded to the optimal heat pipe performance without acceleration. When applied against the direction of the liquid flow (unfavorable orientation) the accelerations were large enough to exceed the capillary limit, as was seen from the strong increase in the evaporator temperature. The influence of accelerations in the direction of the liquid flow (favorable orientation) was found to be more complicated. While at the acceleration of 3g the heat pipe performance improved, at higher accelerations instability developed with resulting large-amplitude oscillations of the evaporator temperature. The instability found in these experiments is thought to be related to the geyser effect observed in thermosyphons.


Author(s):  
Joon Hong Boo ◽  
Young Hark Park ◽  
Masafumi Katsuta ◽  
Sang Chul Bae

Numerical analysis was conducted for a heat pipe application in a metal hydride (MH) reactor for hydrogen gas storage. The hydriding and dehydriding characteristics of MH strongly depend on temperature and pressure. Due to its extremely low thermal conductivity however, it is very difficult to control the temperature of MH, especially when it is of vast bulk as in an MH reactor. This study deals with heat pipes embedded into the MH to increase the effective thermal conductivity of the system and thus to enhance the thermal control characteristics. The existing model was a brine-tube type MH reactor having cylindrical container with outer diameter of 76 mm and length of 1 m, which was partially filled with 8 to 10 kg of MH material. The hydriding and dehydriding processes occur at 10°C and 80°C, respectively. The heat-pipe type reactor model replaced the brine tubes and channels with copper-water heat pipes of the same dimensions. Three-dimensional numerical analysis predicted that the heat-pipe type MH reactor model enhanced thermal performance with faster response to the change of boundary conditions and higher degree of isothermal characteristics. Discussion is presented based on the numerical results of the two models compared with experimental results.


1989 ◽  
Vol 111 (4) ◽  
pp. 844-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Faghri ◽  
S. Thomas

This paper describes the design, testing, and theoretical capillary limit prediction of a new heat pipe configuration, which is the concentric annular heat pipe. The concentric annular heat pipe is made of two concentric pipes of unequal diameters that create an annular vapor space. With this arrangement, capillary wicks can be placed on both the inside of the outer pipe and the outside of the inner pipe. This design significantly increases the heat capacity per unit length compared to conventional heat pipes, since the cross-sectional area of the wick as well as the surface area for heating and cooling are increased. The heat pipe was tested for the temperature distribution in the three sections of the heat pipe under various tilt angles and heating loads through the inner and outer pipes in the evaporator section. A simple analysis for the prediction of the capillary limitation of the concentric annular heat pipe is presented.


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