An Investigation of Flat-Plate Oscillating Heat Pipes

Author(s):  
Peng Cheng ◽  
Scott Thompson ◽  
Joe Boswell ◽  
Hongbin Ma

The heat transfer performance of flat-plate oscillating heat pipes (FP-OHPs) was investigated experimentally and theoretically. Two layers of channels were created by machining grooves on both sides of copper plate, in order to increase the channel number per unit volume. The channels had rectangular cross-sections with hydraulic diameters ranging from 0.762 mm to 1.389 mm. Acetone, water and diamond/acetone, gold/water and diamond/water nanofluids were tested as working fluids. It was found that the FP-OHP’s thermal resistance depended on the power input and operating temperature. The FP-OHP charged with pure water achieved a thermal resistance of 0.078°C/W while removing 560 W with a heat flux of 86.8 W/cm2. The thermal resistance was further decreased when nanofluid was used as the working fluid. A mathematical model predicting the heat transfer performance was developed to predict the effects of channel dimension, heating mode, working fluid and operating temperature on the thermal performance of the FP-OHP. Results presented here will assist in optimization of the FP-OHP and provide a better understanding of heat transfer mechanisms occurring in an OHPs.

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Cheng ◽  
Scott Thompson ◽  
Joe Boswell ◽  
H. B. Ma

The heat transfer performance of flat-plate oscillating heat pipes (FP-OHPs) was investigated experimentally and theoretically. Two layers of channels were created by machining grooves on both sides of a copper plate in order to increase the channel number per unit volume. The channels had rectangular cross-sections with hydraulic diameters ranging from 0.762 mm to 1.389 mm. Acetone, water, diamond/acetone, gold/water, and diamond/water nanofluids were tested as working fluids. It was found that the FP-OHP’s thermal resistance depended on the power input and operating temperature. The FP-OHP charged with 0.0003 vol % gold/water nanofluids achieved a thermal resistance of 0.078 K/W while removing 560 W with a heat flux of 86.8 W/cm2. The thermal resistance was further decreased when the nanofluid was used as the working fluid. A mathematical model predicting the heat transfer performance was developed to predict the thermal performance of the FP-OHP. Results presented here will assist in the optimization of the FP-OHP and provide a better understanding of heat transfer mechanisms occurring in OHPs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingting Hao ◽  
Huiwen Yu ◽  
Xuehu Ma ◽  
Zhong Lan

Abstract For oscillating heat pipes (OHPs) with low turn number (<9) positioned in the horizontal direction, the working fluid could not easily flow back to the evaporator due to the absence of gravity. Based on this, copper OHP with superhydrophilic micro-/nanostructured surface was investigated to enhance the heat transfer performance by introducing additional capillary force. OHPs with six turns were fabricated with bare copper and micro-/nanostructured inner surfaces for comparison. Pure water was used as the working fluid. Contact angles of water on the copper and superhydrophilic surfaces were 36.7 and 0 deg, respectively. The filling ratios of water were 50%, 65%, and 80%, respectively. Thermal resistance and liquid slug oscillations of OHPs were investigated at the heat input ranging from 100 to 380 W. Experimental results showed that OHPs with the superhydrophilic micro-/nanostructured surface showed an enhanced heat transfer performance due to the micro-/nanostructure-induced capillary flow in the horizontal direction. The optimum filling ratio was 65% in this work. The superhydrophilic micro-/nanostructured surface could significantly facilitate the backflow of the working fluid to the evaporator section and accelerate oscillating motions of liquid slugs. With the increasing of 0–70% in slug oscillating amplitude and 0–100% in slug oscillating velocity, micro-/nanostructured OHPs improved the heat transfer performance by up to 10% compared with the copper OHPs due to the wicking effect.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (01) ◽  
pp. 1450005 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHUICHI TORII

This paper aims to study the convective heat transfer behavior of aqueous suspensions of nanoparticles flowing through a horizontal tube heated under constant heat flux condition. Consideration is given to the effects of particle concentration and Reynolds number on heat transfer enhancement and the possibility of nanofluids as the working fluid in various heat exchangers. It is found that (i) significant enhancement of heat transfer performance due to suspension of nanoparticles in the circular tube flow is observed in comparison with pure water as the working fluid, (ii) enhancement is intensified with an increase in the Reynolds number and the nanoparticles concentration, and (iii) substantial amplification of heat transfer performance is not attributed purely to the enhancement of thermal conductivity due to suspension of nanoparticles.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 147059 ◽  
Author(s):  
Behrouz Takabi ◽  
Saeed Salehi

This paper numerically examines laminar natural convection in a sinusoidal corrugated enclosure with a discrete heat source on the bottom wall, filled by pure water, Al2O3/water nanofluid, and Al2O3-Cu/water hybrid nanofluid which is a new advanced nanofluid with two kinds of nanoparticle materials. The effects of Rayleigh number (103≤Ra≤106) and water, nanofluid, and hybrid nanofluid (in volume concentration of 0% ≤ ϕ ≤ 2%) as the working fluid on temperature fields and heat transfer performance of the enclosure are investigated. The finite volume discretization method is employed to solve the set of governing equations. The results indicate that for all Rayleigh numbers been studied, employing hybrid nanofluid improves the heat transfer rate compared to nanofluid and water, which results in a better cooling performance of the enclosure and lower temperature of the heated surface. The rate of this enhancement is considerably more at higher values of Ra and volume concentrations. Furthermore, by applying the modeling results, two correlations are developed to estimate the average Nusselt number. The results reveal that the modeling data are in very good agreement with the predicted data. The maximum error for nanofluid and hybrid nanofluid was around 11% and 12%, respectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingting Hao ◽  
Hongbin Ma ◽  
Xuehu Ma

A new oscillating heat pipe (OHP) charged with hybrid fluids can improve thermal performance. The key difference in this OHP is that it uses room temperature liquid metal (Galinstan consisting of gallium, indium, and tin) and water as the working fluid. The OHP was fabricated on a copper plate with six turns and a 3 × 3 mm2 cross section. The OHP with hybrid fluids as the working fluid was investigated through visual observation and thermal measurement. Liquid metal was successfully driven to flow through the OHP by the pressure difference between the evaporator and the condenser without external force. Experimental results show that while added liquid metal can increase the heat transport capability, liquid metal oscillation amplitude decreases as the filling ratio of liquid metal increases. Visualization of experimental results show that liquid metal oscillation position and velocity increase as the heat input increases. Oscillating motion of liquid metal in the OHP significantly increases the heat transfer performance at high heat input. The lowest thermal resistance of 0.076 °C/W was achieved in the hybrid fluids-filled OHP with a heat input of 420 W. We experimentally demonstrated a 13% higher heat transfer performance using liquid metal as the working fluid compared to an OHP charged with pure water.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 292-301

This paper mainly introduces the sintering process of the monolithic capillary wick and analyzes the influence of different copper powder particle size, filling rate, copper powder shape and heat source size on the heat transfer performance of the isothermal plate. The experimental results show that: (1) For the isothermal plate sintered with spherical copper powder, the capillary force of large particle size copper powder is small, but the flow resistance is also small, and the performance of the isothermal plate sintered with large particle size copper powder is better. (2) In the case of low filling rate, the isothermal plate is dried due to insufficient return fluid. In the case of high filling rate, on the one hand, the thickness of the liquid film at the evaporation end of the isothermal plate is large, resulting in additional thermal resistance. On the other hand, the thin film evaporation mode will be transformed into pool boiling mode, which will reduce the heat transfer performance. (3) Spherical copper powder sintered plate with regular shape has the best performance, while dendritic copper powder sintered plate has relatively high thermal resistance. (4) The heat source area has a great influence on the thermal resistance of the plate. Under the same heating power, the thermal resistance of the small area heat source is much higher than that of the large area heat source; The thermal resistance of sintered copper plate is lower than that of pure copper plate under two heat source areas.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nannan Zhao ◽  
Benwei Fu ◽  
Hongbin Ma ◽  
Fengmin Su

The ultrasonic effect on the heat transfer performance in oscillating heat pipes (OHPs) was investigated experimentally. Ultrasonic sound was applied to the evaporating section of the OHP by using electrically controlled piezoelectric ceramics. The heat pipes were tested with or without the ultrasonic effect. The effects of heat input, filling ratio, orientation, operating temperature, and working fluids (water and acetone) were investigated. The experimental results showed that ultrasonic sound can affect the oscillating motions and enhance the heat transfer performance of an OHP. However, the heat transfer enhancement mainly occurs at low heat input. In addition, it was found that heat transfer enhancement of the ultrasonic effect depends on the working fluid and operating temperature. At an operating temperature of 20 °C, the enhancement percentage of the water OHP is higher than acetone OHP. However, when the operating temperature was increased to 40 °C, the enhancement percentage of the water OHP was lower than the acetone OHP.


2013 ◽  
Vol 711 ◽  
pp. 223-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shen Chun Wu ◽  
Jhih Huang Gao ◽  
Zih Yan Huang ◽  
Dawn Wang ◽  
Cho Jeng Huang ◽  
...  

This study investigates the effects of increasing the evaporating area of wick in a loop heat pipe (LHP). This work attempts to improve the performance of the loop heat pipe by increasing the number of grooves and thereby the surface area of the wick. The number of grooves is increased from eight to twelve. Experimental results show that increasing the number of grooves not only increases the surface area of the wick but also enhances LHP performance. When the evaporating surface area increases by 50%, which corresponds to increasing the number of grooves from eight to twelve, the heat transfer capacity increases from 310W to 470W and the thermal resistance is reduced from 0.21°C/W to 0.17°C/W. According to preliminary measurements, increasing the number of grooves in the loop heat pipe is highly promising for improving the heat transfer performance.


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