THERMAL PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT OF A VERTICAL THERMOSYPHON HEAT PIPE BY FLOW CONTROL OF THE TWO PHASES

Heat Pipe (THP) has a continues evaporation/ condensation cycles of the working fluid. The flow patterns of the two phases is founds by previous published articles, as a non-steady complex spatial flow pattern. This type of the flow blocks the easy moving of the two-phases and limits the thermal performance of the THP. In this study, a copper tubes packing (TP) is simulated numerically to control/manage the flow streams of the two phases inside the THP. The simulated THP is 600mm length made of copper partially filled with water. The TP is consist of a two copper tubes attached contrary to each other with a neighboring openings. The upper tube (Riser tube) facilitate the moving of steam streams from evaporator section to the top of the condenser section. The lower tube (Down-comer tube) facilitate the moving of the condensate streams from the condenser section to the bottom of the evaporator section. The tested filling ratios are (40,50,55,60 and 70) % of evaporator section volume. The supplied heats are (50,75,100,150 and 200) W. The Computational Fluid Dynamics solution are done for a three dimensional model (3DCFD) using ANSYS/ Fluent R19.0 software. The simulation result of the steam volume fractions contours shows that the insertion of TP control the flow streams of both phases. Also prevent the formation of complex flow patterns then enhance the axial velocity vectors and reduce cross velocity vectors. The inserted TP provide a regular circulation paths for the working fluid phases and enhance evaporation /condensation processes. Hence it’s reduce the thermal resistance of the THP about 55% and enhance the thermal performance with the same percentage. In addition, the thermal performance of the enhanced TPTHP is not/a little influence due to the variation of the filling ratio.

Correlation for Predicting Heat Transfer Characteristics of A Helical Oscillating Heat Pipe (HOHP) at Normal Operating Conditions

The helical oscillating heat pipe (HOHP) is a high heat transfer heat exchanger with high flexibility in its installation and can therefore be used in a wide variety of applications. In this study, the effect of various parameters on the heat transfer rates of HOHP were used to establish a correlation equation for use in the heat flux prediction, the dimensionless parameters studied were rv/rl, Bo, Nu, We, Ja, Pr, Fr, Co, Ga, Bi, Wo, Oh, and Ku. Experiments were conducted to find out their effects on the heat transfer rates of copper HOHP with internal diameters were 2.03, 3.5, and 4.5 mm. The lengths of evaporator and condenser sections were equal at 1500, 2000, and 2500 mm. The pitch coils were 10, 15, and 20 mm. The working fluids used were R134a, ethanol, and water with the filling ratios were 30%, 50%, and 80% of the total internal volume. The temperature of evaporator section were varied between 60, 70, and 80°C within normal operating conditions in a vertical position. The results of the experiment showed that the internal diameter, lengths of evaporator/condenser sections, pitch coil, type of working fluid, filling ratio and temperature of evaporator section affected the heat transfer rates of the HOHP. The results of dimensionless parameters can establish the correlation equation to predict the heat flux for the HOHP as shown in this paper. In addition, the results of this research can be applied in the designing and construction of HOHP heat exchangers.

Finding the Thermal Characteristics of a Heat Pipe using Hybrid Nano Fluid

In this experiment, work was carried out to infer the thermal characteristics of a heat pipe containing nano fluid inside in it. Various Parameters were considered in this experiment, some of them are inlet temperature at one end, mass flow rate (mfr) to evaporator section and inclination angle of heat pipe. In this work three numbers of heat pipes were used and hybrid nanofluid of Al2O3 – TiO2 has been used as cooling fluid in all three heat pipes. The thermal efficiency of the usage of hybrid nanofluidic working system is found to be highest and also this makes the system to get worse in terms of thermal resistance. The flow rate of condenser section was modified to the various ratios from 1:1 to 1:3 as that of evaporator section. To find the thermal characteristics of the heat pipe, many experiments have been carried out by considering many operating conditions. Evaluation on the heat pipe effectiveness was made on basis of gravity assistance to the condenser. The better productiveness of heat pipe when using the hybrid nanofluid has attained when Ch/Cc = 2 and 100 LPH for all operating conditions.

Investigation of Start-Up Characteristics of Thermosyphons Modified with Different Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Inner Surfaces

In this paper, the influence of wettability properties on the start-up characteristics of two-phase closed thermosyphons (TPCTs) is investigated. Chemical coating and etching techniques are performed to prepare the surfaces with different wettabilities that is quantified in the form of the contact angle (CA). The 12 TPCTs are processed including the same CA and a different CA combination on the inner surfaces inside both the evaporator and the condenser sections. For TPCTs with the same wettability properties, the introduction of hydrophilic properties inside the evaporator section not only significantly reduces the start-up time but also decreases the start-up temperature. For example, the start-up time of a TPCT with CA = 28° at 40 W, 60 W and 80 W is 46%, 50% and 55% shorter than that of a TPCT with a smooth surface and the wall superheat degrees is 55%, 39% and 28% lower, respectively. For TPCTs with combined hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties, the start-up time spent on the evaporator section with hydrophilic properties is shorter than that of the hydrophobic evaporator section and the smaller CA on the condenser section shows better results. The start-up time of a TPCT with CA = 28° on the evaporator section and CA = 105° on the condenser section has the best start-up process at 40 W, 60 W and 80 W which is 14%, 22% and 26% shorter than that of a TPCT with smooth surface. Thus, the hydrophilic and hydrophobic modifications play a significant role in promoting the start-up process of a TPCT.

Visualization of Two-phase Bursting Flow Effect on the Two-Phase Closed Thermosyphon

Two-phase flow inside the two-phase closed thermosyphon (TPCT) including evaporator, adiabatic and condenser sections was visually investigated in order to qualitatively analyze the complicated behaviors of both liquid film and vapor flows simultaneously. The semi-cylindrical channel which is 650 mm long was formed in the long copper block and the flat face of the channel was covered with a flat Pyrex glass for visual observation. The inner diameter of the semi-cylindrical channel was 25 mm and distilled water was used as a working fluid. The filling ratio of the thermosyphon was fixed at 0.5 and the inclination angle was set to 60º. As the heat flux increases, nucleate boiling becomes dominant and the bursting motion starts to begin in the liquid pool at the evaporator section. The bursting liquid flow reaches the condenser section and changes the condensation regime from dropwise to filmwise by flooding the condenser wall, which results in the decrease of condensation heat transfer coefficient. In addition, the vigorous vapor generation which occurs in the liquid pool at the evaporator section disturbs the circulation of the condensate film from the condenser to the evaporator section. As a result, the local dry-out occurs on the evaporator section with increasing heat flux, so the boiling heat transfer coefficient is decreased. [This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018H1D3A2000929).]

Numerical study of flat plate solar collector performance with square shape wicked evaporator

In this work, a system of a heat pipe is implemented to improve the performance of flat plate solar collector. The model is represented by square shape portion of the evaporator section of wicked heat pipe with a constant total length of 510 mm, and the evaporator section inclined by an angle of 30o. In this models the evaporator, adiabatic and condenser lengths are 140mm, 140mm, and 230mm respectively. The omitted energies from sunlight simulator are 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 W/m2 which is close to the normal solar energy in Iraq. The working fluid for all models is water with fill charge ratio of 240%. The efficiency of the solar collector is investigated with three values of condenser inlet water temperatures, namely (12, 16 and 20o C). The numerical result showed an optimum volume flow rate of cooling water in condenser at which the efficiency of collector is a maximum. This optimum agree well with the ASHRAE standard volume of flow rate for conventional tasting for flat plate solar collector. When the radiation incident increases the thermal resistance of wicked heat pipe is decreases, where the heat transfer from the evaporator to condenser increases. The numerical results showed the performance of solar collector with square shape evaporator greater than other types of evaporator as a ratio 15 %.