Graphite Foam Thermosyphon Evaporator Performance: Parametric Investigation of the Effects of Working Fluid, Liquid Level, and Chamber Pressure

Author(s):  
Johnathan S. Coursey ◽  
Hongkoo Roh ◽  
Jungho Kim ◽  
Paul J. Boudreaux

Graphite foams have recently been developed at ORNL and are beginning to be applied to thermal management of electronics. These foams consist of a network of interconnected graphite ligaments whose thermal conductivities are up to five times higher than copper. The thermal conductivity of the bulk graphite foam is similar to aluminum, but graphite foam has one-fifth the density of aluminum. This combination of high thermal conductivity and low density results in a thermal diffusivity about four times higher than that of aluminum, allowing heat to rapidly propagate into the foam. This heat is spread out over the very large surface area within the foam, enabling large amounts of energy to be transferred with relatively low temperature difference. The use of graphite foam as the evaporator of a thermosyphon is investigated due to its potential to transfer large amounts of energy without the need for external pumping. A preliminary optimization of the parameters governing evaporator performance is performed using 2-level factorial design. Performance of the system with both PF-5060 and PF-5050 were examined as well as the effects of liquid level and chamber pressure.

Author(s):  
Hongkoo Roh ◽  
Jungho Kim ◽  
Paul J. Boudreaux

Graphite foams consist of a network of interconnected graphite ligaments and are beginning to be applied to thermal management of electronics. The thermal conductivity of the bulk graphite foam is similar to aluminum, but graphite foam has one-fifth the density of aluminum. This combination of high thermal conductivity and low density results in a specific thermal conductivity about five times higher than that of aluminum, allowing heat to rapidly propagate into the foam. This heat is spread out over the very large surface area within the foam, enabling large amounts of energy to be transferred with relatively low temperature difference. For the purpose of graphite foam thermosyphon design in electronics cooling, various effects such as graphite foam geometry, sub-cooling, working fluid effect, and liquid level were investigated in this study. The best thermal performance was achieved with the large graphite foam, working fluid with the lowest boiling point, a liquid level with the exact height of the graphite foam, and at the lowest sub-cooling temperature.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 447-452
Author(s):  
James K. Carson ◽  
Mohamed Alsowailem

The thermal diffusivities of copper/linear-low-density polyethylene (Cu/LLDPE) composites were measured relative to the thermal diffusivity of pure LLDPE. The relative thermal diffusivities were similar to those obtained for copper/high-density polyethylene composites, but were noticeably different from estimated values derived from thermal conductivity, density and specific heat capacity data for Cu/LLDPE from the literature. The thermal diffusivity of the composite material initially decreased below that of the pure polymer with the addition of a small amount of copper, before increasing above it as more was added. There would appear to be marginal or no benefit from adding less than about 15 to 20% metal by volume to a polymer, since the relative increase in thermal diffusivity only becomes significant for greater volumes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Weigand ◽  
Kieran Hess ◽  
Amy S. Fleischer

Phase change materials (PCMs) are commonly used in many applications, including the transient thermal management of electronics. For many systems, paraffin-based PCMs are used with suspended nanoinclusions to increase their effective thermal conductivity. The addition of these materials can have a positive impact on thermal conductivity, but can also increase the viscosity in the liquid phase. In this paper, the impact of different nanoinclusions and surfactants on the dynamic viscosity of a common paraffin wax PCM is quantified in order to determine their suitability for thermal energy storage applications. The effect of the nanoparticles on the viscosity is found to be a function of the nanoparticle type with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) yielding the greatest increase in viscosity. The addition of both nanoparticle and surfactant to the base PCM is found to affect the viscosity even when the loading levels of the nanoparticles or surfactant alone are not enough to affect the viscosity, thus the combination must be carefully considered in any heat transfer application.


2005 ◽  
Vol 128 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. A. Williams ◽  
J. A. Roux

Much focus has been placed on the thermal management of electronics in recent years. An overall reduction in size of electronic components as well as advances in chip technology, leading to ever higher power dissipation, have increased the necessity for innovative cooling designs. While computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software packages have been instrumental in the design of cooling systems, it remains important to validate these CFD predictions through experimentation. The present work focuses on the experimental evaluation of several variations of an air cooled base plate channel design for an array of generic power amplifier modules. In the current study two materials, graphite foam and a microfibrous material, are investigated as mini-heat exchangers to be implemented in the cooling channel of the base plate. Computational simulations have been conducted on some of the proposed designs in order to evaluate certain parameters. Experiments were conducted measuring chip temperatures and the pressure drop across the cooling channel. Effective heat transfer coefficients were also reverse engineered.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kambiz Jahani ◽  
Maziar Mohammadi ◽  
Mohammad Behshad Shafii ◽  
Zahra Shiee

Currently, the thermal management of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) has become a challenge. In the present research, a micro pulsating heat pipe (MPHP) with a hydraulic diameter of 508 μm, is experimented. The thermal performance of the MPHP in both the transient and steady conditions, the effects of the working fluid (water, silver nanofluid, and ferrofluid), heating power (4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, and 28 W), charging ratio (20, 40, 60, and 80%), inclination angle (0 deg, 25 deg, 45 deg, 75 deg, and 90 deg relative to horizontal axis), and the application of magnetic field, are investigated and thoroughly discussed. The experimental results show that the optimum charging ratio for water is 40%, while this optimum for nanofluids is 60%. In most of situations, the nanofluid charged MPHPs have a lower thermal resistance relative to the water charged ones. For ferrofluid charged MPHP, the application of a magnetic field substantially reduces the thermal resistance. This study proposes an outstanding technique for the thermal management of electronics.


Author(s):  
Minhua Lu ◽  
Larry Mok ◽  
R. J. Bezama

A vapor chamber using high thermal conductivity and permeability graphite foam as a wick has been designed, built and tested. With ethanol as the working fluid, the vapor chamber has been demonstrated at a heat flux of 80 W/cm2. The effects of the capillary limit, the boiling limit, and the thermal resistance in restricting the overall performance of a vapor chamber have been analyzed. Because of the high thermal conductivity of the graphite foams, the modeling results show that the performance of a vapor chamber using a graphite foam is about twice that of one using a copper wick structure. Furthermore, if water is used as the working fluid instead of ethanol, the performance of the vapor chamber will be increased further. Graphite foam vapor chambers with water as the working fluid can be made by treating the graphite foam with an oxygen plasma to improve the wetting of the graphite by the water.


2005 ◽  
Vol 128 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minhua Lu ◽  
Larry Mok ◽  
R. J. Bezama

A vapor chamber using high thermal conductivity and permeability graphite foam as a wick has been designed, built, and tested. With ethanol as the working fluid, the vapor chamber has been demonstrated at a heat flux of 80W∕cm2. The effects of the capillary limit, the boiling limit, and the thermal resistance in restricting the overall performance of a vapor chamber have been analyzed. Because of the high thermal conductivity of the graphite foams, the modeling results show that the performance of a vapor chamber using a graphite foam is about twice that of one using a copper wick structure. Furthermore, if water is used as the working fluid instead of ethanol, the performance of the vapor chamber will be increased further. Graphite foam vapor chambers with water as the working fluid can be made by treating the graphite foam with an oxygen plasma to improve the wetting of the graphite by the water.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Hammerschmidt ◽  
Muhammad Abid

AbstractThe thermal diffusivity of evacuated and liquid-saturated borosilicate glass sieves (frits) of porosities between 20 % and 48 % is presented as measured at room temperature. The saturants cover a range in thermal diffusivity from 0.091 mm2·s−1 to 0.143 mm2·s−1. The runs were carried out using a transient hot bridge (THB) measuring instrument of an expanded uncertainty of 5 % to 10 %. The experimental results are successfully fitted to a novel transient parallel-serial (TPSC) conduction model for the time-dependent composite heat transfer in porous media. The TPSC-model is an extension of the steady-state parallel-serial conduction (PSC) model to predict the thermal conductivity. The TPSC model confirms the so-called thermal porosity of the frits under test, a term that has been introduced in a former report on the thermal conductivity of the matrices (Hammerschmidt and Abid, Int J Thermophys 42:40, 2021). The experimental findings on the conductive transport of heat by glass sieves and their accurate mathematical description in the framework of the PSC and TPSC models might effectively support improving the thermal management of electronic devices and lithium-ion batteries.


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