Utilization of Advanced Working Fluids in Heat Pipes

Author(s):  
Sean W. Reilly ◽  
Ivan Catton

A novel fluid for use as a working fluid in a heat pipe has been tested at UCLA. The fluid was discovered originally in use with a device consisting of a metal tube charged with the patented inorganic aqueous solution (IAS) which is evaporated when the tube is evacuated before use. According to the patent, this evaporation leaves a thin film which allows the tube to carry high heat flux loads with low temperature drop across the tube in a solid state mode. However, various experiments with these tubes have produced inconsistent results and there is some question as to whether the fluid is completely evaporated. The research on which this work is based, is focused on testing whether the charging fluid will operate as the working fluid in a heat pipe, in order to determine the nature of the IAS fluid. We charged a heat pipe apparatus with a biporous wick in order to investigate if the fluid plays a role in heat transfer. We have extensive data for this experiment using water as the working fluid which will use to compare the two sets of results. Testing has shown positive results in the reduction of the superheat required to drive heat fluxes through a wick compared to water. Some experiments have shown that the operating (temperature) range of the IAS is much larger than a standard heat pipe. It is theorized that the increase in performance of the IAS is due to an increased heat of vaporization. If this fluid is proven to be effective, it would lead to more effective and tunable heat transfer devices.

Author(s):  
Sean W. Reilly ◽  
Ivan Catton

A novel fluid for use as a working fluid in a heat pipe has been tested at UCLA. The fluid was discovered originally in use with a device consisting of a metal tube charged with the patented inorganic aqueous solution (IAS), which is evaporated when the tube is evacuated before use. According to the patent, this evaporation leaves a thin film that allows the tube to carry high heat flux loads with low temperature drop across the tube in a solid state mode. However, various experiments with these tubes have produced inconsistent results, and there are some questions as to whether the fluid is completely evaporated. The research on which this work is based is focused on testing whether the charging fluid will operate as the working fluid in a heat pipe, in order to determine the nature of the IAS fluid. A heat pipe apparatus was charged with a biporous wick in order to investigate if the fluid plays a role in heat transfer. There are extensive data for this experiment using water as the working fluid, which will be used to compare the two sets of results. Testing has shown a reduction of the superheat required to drive heat fluxes through a wick compared to water by approximately 40%. Some experiments have shown that the operating (temperature) range of the IAS is much larger than a standard heat pipe. It is theorized that the increase in performance of the IAS is due to an increased thermal conductivity of the wick and increased capillarity. If this fluid is proven to be effective, it would lead to more effective and tunable heat transfer devices.


Author(s):  
H. B. Ma ◽  
K. P. Lofgreen ◽  
G. P. Peterson

An experimental investigation on a highly efficient heat pipe heat sink was investigated, in which the interline region was optimized using sintered particles. The effects of condenser size, sintered particles, and forced air flow on the heat transfer performance were investigated experimentally. The experimental results indicated that the thin film evaporation could significantly increase the evaporating heat transfer coefficient and remove heat fluxes up to 800 kW/m2. In addition, a theoretical model capable of predicting the temperature drop occurring in the device was developed. The predicted performance was in good agreement with the experimental data. The resulting model can be used to assist in the design of high heat flux, heat pipe heat sinks for applications to both ground based and spacecraft applications.


2005 ◽  
Vol 128 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. B. Ma ◽  
K. P. Lofgreen ◽  
G. P. Peterson

An experimental investigation of a highly efficient heat pipe heat sink was investigated, in which the interline region was optimized using sintered particles. The effects of condenser size, sintered particles, and forced air flow on the heat transfer performance were investigated experimentally. The experimental results indicated that the thin film evaporation could significantly increase the evaporating heat transfer coefficient and remove heat fluxes up to 800kW∕m2. In addition, a theoretical model capable of predicting the temperature drop occurring in this device was developed. The predicted performance was in good agreement with the experimental data and the resulting model can be used to assist in the design of high heat flux, heat pipe heat sinks.


2013 ◽  
Vol 589-590 ◽  
pp. 559-564
Author(s):  
Xi Bing Li ◽  
Yun Shi Ma ◽  
Xun Wang ◽  
Ming Li

As a highly efficient heat transfer component, a micro heat pipe (MHP) has been widely applied to the situations with high heat flux concentration. However, a MHPs heat transfer performance is affected by many factors, among which, working fluid inventory has great influence on the security, reliability and frost resistance of its heat transfer performance. In order to determine the appropriate working fluid inventory for grooved MHPs, this paper first analyzed the working principle, major heat transfer limits and heat flux distribution law of grooved MHPs in electronic chips with high heat flux concentration, then established a mathematic model for the working fluid inventory in grooved MHPs. Finally, with distilled water being the working fluid, a series of experimental investigations were conducted at different temperatures to test the heat transfer performances of grooved MHPs, which were perfused with different inventories and with different adiabatic section lengths. The experimental results show that when the value of α is roughly within 0.40±0.05, a grooved MHP can acquire its best heat transfer performance, and the working fluid inventory can be determined by the proposed mathematic model. Therefore this study solves the complicated problem of determining appropriate working fluid inventory for grooved MHPs.


Author(s):  
Thomas B. Baummer ◽  
Ebrahim Al-Hajri ◽  
Michael M. Ohadi ◽  
Serguei V. Dessiatoun

This paper presents experimental results from research investigating the heat transfer capabilities of microchannel surfaces using a novel force-fed boiling and evaporation technique. The evaporative surfaces being investigated consist of a series of parallel, high-aspect ratio, open topped microchannels. The different sample surfaces vary in channel density, channel aspect ratio, and channel width and have heat transfer surface areas up to ten times their nominal surface areas. Liquid enters the channels of the evaporative surface from above through a developed system of feed channels. This method organizes a liquid-vapor circulation at the boiling surface that results in dissipation of very high heat fluxes in the boiling/thin film evaporation mode. By using the force-fed boiling technique, nominal area heat transfer rates of 100,000 W/m2-K have been achieved with HFE-7100 as the working fluid [1]. In force-fed boiling, the many very short microchannels are working in parallel; therefore the feed pressure and pumping power are very low. This technique may prove valuable to a wide range of heat transfer applications, particularly for heat removal at high heat flux surfaces.


2017 ◽  
Vol 868 ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Yi Luo ◽  
Si Di Li ◽  
Zi Cheng Yu ◽  
Xiao Dong Wang

The appearance of high power LED has put forward higher requirements for thermal management. The micro heat pipe (MHP) has high heat transfer ability and plays an important role in high power LED and other high heat flux device cooling. In this paper, we designed and fabricated a micro heat pipe with fluoroalkyl silane (FAS) surface modified glass cover. The contact angle of the working area of glass cover reached 95.49° and made working fluid drops fall back to micro groove of silicon substrate more quickly. Thus the new glass cover can speed up the circulation of working fluid and enhance the heat transfer. The experimental results also proved that hydrophobic glass cover has a better heat transfer capability. Besides, this novel MHP reached the stable working status faster. When the input heat power was 10 W, the balance temperature of MHP with hydrophobic glass cover was 22 oC lower than traditional MHP, while the balance time is 58 seconds less. The work presented in this paper provides a new direction for optimize the MHP, not only the wick structure in substrate, but also the wettability of cover plate.


Author(s):  
Jensen Hoke ◽  
Todd Bandhauer ◽  
Jack Kotovsky ◽  
Julie Hamilton ◽  
Paul Fontejon

Liquid-vapor phase change heat transfer in microchannels offers a number of significant advantages for thermal management of high heat flux laser diodes, including reduced flow rates and near constant temperature heat rejection. Modern laser diode bars can produce waste heat loads >1 kW cm−2, and prior studies show that microchannel flow boiling heat transfer at these heat fluxes is possible in very compact heat exchanger geometries. This paper describes further performance improvements through area enhancement of microchannels using a pyramid etching scheme that increases heat transfer area by ∼40% over straight walled channels, which works to promote heat spreading and suppress dry-out phenomenon when exposed to high heat fluxes. The device is constructed from a reactive ion etched silicon wafer bonded to borosilicate to allow flow visualization. The silicon layer is etched to contain an inlet and outlet manifold and a plurality of 40μm wide, 200μm deep, 2mm long channels separated by 40μm wide fins. 15μm wide 150μm long restrictions are placed at the inlet of each channel to promote uniform flow rate in each channel as well as flow stability in each channel. In the area enhanced parts either a 3μm or 6μm sawtooth pattern was etched vertically into the walls, which were also scalloped along the flow path with the a 3μm periodicity. The experimental results showed that the 6μm area-enhanced device increased the average maximum heat flux at the heater to 1.26 kW cm2 using R134a, which compares favorably to a maximum of 0.95 kw cm2 dissipated by the plain walled test section. The 3μm area enhanced test sections, which dissipated a maximum of 1.02 kW cm2 showed only a modest increase in performance over the plain walled test sections. Both area enhancement schemes delayed the onset of critical heat flux to higher heat inputs.


Author(s):  
Olubunmi Popoola ◽  
Ayobami Bamgbade ◽  
Yiding Cao

An effective design option for a cooling system is to use a two-phase pumped cooling loop to simultaneously satisfy the temperature uniformity and high heat flux requirements. A reciprocating-mechanism driven heat loop (RMDHL) is a novel heat transfer device that could attain a high heat transfer rate through a reciprocating flow of the two-phase working fluid inside the heat transfer device. Although the device has been tested and validated experimentally, analytical or numerical study has not been undertaken to understand its working mechanism and provide guidance for the device design. The objective of this paper is to develop a numerical model for the RMDHL to predict its operational performance under different working conditions. The developed numerical model has been successfully validated by the existing experimental data and will provide a powerful tool for the design and performance optimization of future RMDHLs. The study also reveals that the maximum velocity in the flow occurs near the wall rather than at the center of the pipe, as in the case of unidirectional steady flow. This higher velocity near the wall may help to explain the enhanced heat transfer of an RMDHL.


Author(s):  
Hailei Wang ◽  
Richard Peterson

Flow boiling and heat transfer enhancement in four parallel microchannels using a dielectric working fluid, HFE 7000, was investigated. Each channel was 1000 μm wide and 510 μm high. A unique channel surface enhancement technique via diffusion bonding a layer of conductive fine wire mesh onto the heating wall was developed. According to the obtained flow boiling curves for both the bare and mesh channels, the amount of wall superheat was significantly reduced for the mesh channel at all stream-wise locations. This indicated that the nucleate boiling in the mesh channel was enhanced due to the increase of nucleation sites the mesh introduced. Both the nucleate boiling dominated and convective evaporation dominated regimes were identified. In addition, the overall trend for the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient, with respect to vapor quality, was increasing until the vapor quality reached approximately 0.4. The critical heat flux (CHF) for the mesh channel was also significantly higher than that of the bare channel in the low vapor quality region. Due to the fact of how the mesh was incorporated into the channels, no pressure drop penalty was identified for the mesh channels. Potential applications for this kind of mesh channel include high heat-flux electronic cooling systems and various energy conversion systems.


Author(s):  
Nihal E. Joshua ◽  
Denesh K. Ajakumar ◽  
Huseyin Bostanci

This study experimentally investigated the effect of hydrophobic patterned surfaces in nucleate boiling heat transfer. A dielectric liquid, HFE-7100, was used as the working fluid in the saturated boiling tests. Dielectric liquids are known to have highly-wetting characteristics. They tend to fill surface cavities that would normally trap vapor/gas, and serve as active nucleation sites during boiling. With the lack of these vapor filled cavities, boiling of a dielectric liquid leads to high incipience superheats and accompanying temperature overshoots. Heater samples in this study were prepared by applying a thin Teflon (AF400, Dupont) coating on 1-cm2 smooth copper surfaces following common photolithography techniques. Matching size thick film resistors, attached onto the copper samples, generated heat and simulated high heat flux electronic devices. Tests investigated the heater samples featuring circular pattern sizes between 40–100 μm, and corresponding pitch sizes between 80–200 μm. Additionally, a plain, smooth copper surface was tested to obtain reference data. Based on data, hydrophobic patterned surfaces effectively eliminated the temperature overshoot at boiling incipience, and considerably improved nucleate boiling performance in terms of heat transfer coefficient and critical heat flux over the reference surface. Hydrophobic patterned surfaces therefore demonstrated a practical surface modification method for heat transfer enhancement in immersion cooling applications.


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