Improving Biporous Heat Transfer by Addition of Monoporous Interface Layer

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

Biporous evaporator wicks, generated by sintering copper particles into semi-uniform clusters, were demonstrated to achieve high flux, heat transfer performance for use in heat pipes by Semenic (2007). The effective thermal conductivity of thick biporous wicks at high heat fluxes was found to be reduced because the region next to the wall dried out prematurely allowing the wall interface temperature to rise well above the saturation temperature. The region above the dried out portion of the wick continued to work with the large pores between the clusters being primarily occupied with vapor and the small pores between the particles being occupied with the liquid. In this work, we report our efforts to reduce the size of the wall-wick interface dry-out region by sintering a thin layer of uniform size particles on the wall as originally suggested in a thesis by Seminic (2007). The boiling curve for this “double layer” wick diverges from a standard “single layer” biporous wick at the point of nucleation by reducing the wall temperature, and concurrently the overall temperature drop across the wick needed to drive a given heat flux. The temperature drop across the wick is reduced because the thin layer of particles between the biporous wick and the wall reduces the wall-wick interface resistance and also provides additional capillary channels underneath the biporous wick. Experimental data supports this hypothesis by showing a clear divergence between measured wall temperatures for the double layer wick from its single layer counterpart. The presumed point of nucleation in both wicks is similar, with the heat flux increasing much more rapidly than the liquid superheat and it is clear that this slope is much steeper for the double layer wick. This finding has great potential to expand the performance capabilities of heat pipes and vapor chambers because the new double layered wick can transfer more heat with less superheat thereby increasing the effective thermal conductivity of the wick and decreasing the wall-wick interface temperature for a given heat flux.

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

Developing better heat pipes requires advancement of technology in all aspects of construction. In this paper I am investigating the effect of vapor pathways on the performance of biporous wicks in heat pipes. Biporous evaporator wicks, generated by sintering copper particles into semi-uniform clusters, were demonstrated to achieve high flux, heat transfer performance for use in heat pipes by Semenic (2007). The effective thermal conductivity of thick biporous wicks at high heat fluxes was found to be reduced because the region next to the wall dried out prematurely, allowing the wall interface temperature to rise well above the saturation temperature. One possible way to reduce the size of the wall-wick interface dry-out region is to sinter a thin layer of uniform size particles on the wall as suggested by Seminic. The boiling curve for this “double layer” wick diverges from a standard “single layer” biporous wick at the point of nucleation by reducing the wall temperature, and concurrently the overall temperature drop across the wick needed to drive a given heat flux. The temperature drop across the wick is reduced because the thin layer of particles between the biporous wick and the wall reduces the wall-wick interface resistance and also provides additional capillary channels underneath the biporous wick. Experimental data supports this hypothesis by showing a clear divergence between measured wall temperatures for the double layer wick from its single layer counterpart with an indication that smaller cluster sizes in the biporous wicks perform better at lowering the superheat required to obtain high fluxes. In this work, we are looking to compare the performance of these wicks to similarly sized blocks of copper in order to investigate the performance increase offered by the wicks. In order to investigate this phenomenon we ran experiments in a similar manner to previous experiments done by Reilly (2009), but a plate was inserted into the chamber above the wick to restrict the vapor flow. To determine the behavior in the copper we ran several simulations in COMSOL (a finite element software used for doing conduction analysis) of copper disks at different representative thicknesses. We ran experiments with the plate at several heights above the wick, going so far as to place the plate flush with the upper surface of the wick to force vapor back through the wick laterally. By comparing the results between these two sets of experiments we were able to deduce that even in the case where there was no open space above the wick for vapor to escape, we were still able to double the performance with respect to a system of solid copper.


2011 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karthik K. Bodla ◽  
Jayathi Y. Murthy ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

Porous sintered microstructures are critical to the functioning of passive heat transport devices such as heat pipes. The topology and microstructure of the porous wick play a crucial role in determining the thermal performance of such devices. Three sintered copper wick samples employed in commercial heat pipes are characterized in this work in terms of their thermal transport properties––porosity, effective thermal conductivity, permeability, and interfacial heat transfer coefficient. The commercially available samples of nearly identical porosities (∼61% open volume) are CT scanned at 5.5 μm resolution, and the resulting image stack is reconstructed to produce high-quality finite volume meshes representing the solid and interstitial pore regions, with a conformal mesh at the interface separating these two regions. The resulting mesh is then employed for numerical analysis of thermal transport through fluid-saturated porous sintered beds. Multiple realizations are employed for statistically averaging out the randomness exhibited by the samples under consideration. The effective thermal conductivity and permeability data are compared with analytical models developed for spherical particle beds. The dependence of effective thermal conductivity of sintered samples on the extent of sintering is quantified. The interfacial heat transfer coefficient is compared against a correlation from the literature based on experimental data obtained with spherical particle beds. A modified correlation is proposed to match the results obtained.


Author(s):  
Mustafa Özçatalbaş ◽  
Ramazan Aykut Sezmen

Abstract Heat pipes are passive two-phase heat transfer devices that used in various heat transport applications because of their high thermal conductance capacities with low temperature differences. One of these applications is aerospace avionics that heat pipes are exposed to transient heat loads. Although heat pipes have been one of the heat removal alternatives for compact electronic devices, they have some restrictions during the usage in such high heat flux areas. In order to use heat pipes as effective heat removal devices, operating heat load range should not be exceeded during the operation of avionics or electronic devices. Out of these operating range, heat pipes no longer perform as effective heat removal devices because of phenomena called dry-out. In this study, a novel Finite Element (FE) Analysis Method was developed to model transient heat transfer behavior in heat pipes including dry-out phenomenon. Transient heat transfer analysis using Finite Element Method (FEM) was conducted to investigate heat pipe thermal performance considering heat flux dependent thermal conductivity under randomly varying heat inputs, which were assumed as heat dissipation of an electronic device. Validation of the FE model was done by using the results given in the literature. Heat pipe was made of Al with a length of LHP = 200 mm. Heat flux and convective heat transfer boundary conditions were used at the evaporator and condenser sections, respectively. Effective thermal conductivity of heat pipe, keff, was calculated by using the heat input depended thermal resistance, Rth, values given in literature. Under transient heat loads, heat flux dependent effective thermal conductivity was defined using user defined subroutines to simulate the dry-out. The transient heat transfer analysis was conducted using ABAQUS commercially available software. Temperature differences between evaporator and condenser sections, ΔT = Te−Tc, and thermal resistance, Rth, values are calculated for varying heat input values and compared with the results that provided in literature.


Author(s):  
Yingsong Zheng ◽  
Jason M. Reese ◽  
Thomas J. Scanlon ◽  
Duncan A. Lockerby

A new hydrodynamic model is proposed in order to model critical phenomena in gas flows at the micro- and nanoscale. A scaling is applied to the conventional Navier-Stokes-Fourier equations, mathematically equivalent to using an “effective” viscosity and an “effective” thermal conductivity in the original linear constitutive relations. Expressions for this “effective” viscosity and this “effective” thermal conductivity are obtained from two ideal half-space flow problems: Kramer’s problem, and the temperature jump problem. Our model ensures the correct viscous stress is maintained in the region of the wall in isothermal flow (or the correct heat flux in the pure heat transfer situation); it is only the relationships between stress and the corresponding near-wall strain-rate, and between heat flux and the near-wall temperature gradient, that are altered. The advantage of our model over the traditional linear hydrodynamic model is that the non-equilibrium flow in the Knudsen layer is described. Its advantage over higher-order hydrodynamic models for rarefied gas flows is that no additional boundary conditions are required (although there are minor changes in the slip/jump coefficients), so modifications of current CFD codes to incorporate this new model would be minimal. As an application example, we solve for the velocity profiles and drag force on a micro-sphere moving in a gas at different Knudsen numbers (Kn). For this problem, our model gives excellent results for Kn<0.1 and accptable results up to Kn = 0.25: this is considerably better that the tradition Navier-Stokes model with non-scaled constitutive relations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naveen Janjanam ◽  
Rajesh Nimmagadda ◽  
Lazarus Godson Asirvatham ◽  
R. Harish ◽  
Somchai Wongwises

AbstractTwo-dimensional conjugate heat transfer performance of stepped lid-driven cavity was numerically investigated in the present study under forced and mixed convection in laminar regime. Pure water and Aluminium oxide (Al2O3)/water nanofluid with three different nanoparticle volume concentrations were considered. All the numerical simulations were performed in ANSYS FLUENT using homogeneous heat transfer model for Reynolds number, Re = 100 to 500 and Grashof number, Gr = 5000, 13,000 and 20,000. Effective thermal conductivity of the Al2O3/water nanofluid was evaluated by considering the Brownian motion of nanoparticles which results in 20.56% higher value for 3 vol.% Al2O3/water nanofluid in comparison with the lowest thermal conductivity value obtained in the present study. A solid region made up of silicon is present underneath the fluid region of the cavity in three geometrical configurations (forward step, backward step and no step) which results in conjugate heat transfer. For higher Re values (Re = 500), no much difference in the average Nusselt number (Nuavg) is observed between forced and mixed convection. Whereas, for Re = 100 and Gr = 20,000, Nuavg value of mixed convection is 24% higher than that of forced convection. Out of all the three configurations, at Re = 100, forward step with mixed convection results in higher heat transfer performance as the obtained interface temperature is lower than all other cases. Moreover, at Re = 500, 3 vol.% Al2O3/water nanofluid enhances the heat transfer performance by 23.63% in comparison with pure water for mixed convection with Gr = 20,000 in forward step.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Eduardo Freitas ◽  
Pedro Pontes ◽  
Ricardo Cautela ◽  
Vaibhav Bahadur ◽  
João Miranda ◽  
...  

This study addresses the combination of customized surface modification with the use of nanofluids, to infer on its potential to enhance pool-boiling heat transfer. Hydrophilic surfaces patterned with superhydrophobic regions were developed and used as surface interfaces with different nanofluids (water with gold, silver, aluminum and alumina nanoparticles), in order to evaluate the effect of the nature and concentration of the nanoparticles in bubble dynamics and consequently in heat transfer processes. The main qualitative and quantitative analysis was based on extensive post-processing of synchronized high-speed and thermographic images. To study the nucleation of a single bubble in pool boiling condition, a numerical model was also implemented. The results show an evident benefit of using biphilic patterns with well-established distances between the superhydrophobic regions. This can be observed in the resulting plot of the dissipated heat flux for a biphilic pattern with seven superhydrophobic spots, δ = 1/d and an imposed heat flux of 2132 w/m2. In this case, the dissipated heat flux is almost constant (except in the instant t* ≈ 0.9 when it reaches a peak of 2400 W/m2), whilst when using only a single superhydrophobic spot, where the heat flux dissipation reaches the maximum shortly after the detachment of the bubble, dropping continuously until a new necking phase starts. The biphilic patterns also allow a controlled bubble coalescence, which promotes fluid convection at the hydrophilic spacing between the superhydrophobic regions, which clearly contributes to cool down the surface. This effect is noticeable in the case of employing the Ag 1 wt% nanofluid, with an imposed heat flux of 2132 W/m2, where the coalescence of the drops promotes a surface cooling, identified by a temperature drop of 0.7 °C in the hydrophilic areas. Those areas have an average temperature of 101.8 °C, whilst the average temperature of the superhydrophobic spots at coalescence time is of 102.9 °C. For low concentrations as the ones used in this work, the effect of the nanofluids was observed to play a minor role. This can be observed on the slight discrepancy of the heat dissipation decay that occurred in the necking stage of the bubbles for nanofluids with the same kind of nanoparticles and different concentration. For the Au 0.1 wt% nanofluid, a heat dissipation decay of 350 W/m2 was reported, whilst for the Au 0.5 wt% nanofluid, the same decay was only of 280 W/m2. The results of the numerical model concerning velocity fields indicated a sudden acceleration at the bubble detachment, as can be qualitatively analyzed in the thermographic images obtained in this work. Additionally, the temperature fields of the analyzed region present the same tendency as the experimental results.


1971 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-768 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. R. Williams

The effect of a temperature gradient in a gas inclined at an angle to a boundary wall has been investigated. For an infinite half-space of gas it is found that, in addition to the conventional temperature slip problem, the component of the temperature gradient parallel to the wall induces a net mass flow known as thermal creep. We show that the temperature slip and thermal creep effects can be decoupled and treated quite separately.Expressions are obtained for the creep velocity and heat flux, both far from and at the boundary; it is noted that thermal creep tends to reduce the effective thermal conductivity of the medium.


2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. S. Sazhin ◽  
V. A. Gol'dshtein ◽  
M. R. Heikal

Newton's law of cooling is shown to underestimate the heat flux between a spherical body (droplet) and a homogeneous gas after this body is suddenly immersed into the gas. This problem is rectified by replacing the gas thermal conductivity by the effective thermal conductivity. The latter reduces to the gas thermal conductivity in the limit of t→∞, but can be substantially higher in the limit of t→0. In the case of fuel droplet heating in a medium duty truck Diesel engine the gas thermal conductivity may need to be increased by more than 100 percent at the initial stage of calculations to account for transient effects during the process of droplet heating.


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