Visualisation and Heat Transfer Performance of Mini-Channel Flat Heat Pipe with a Binary Mixture

  • FAN Gaoting ,
  • TANG Aikun ,
  • CAI Tao ,
  • SHAN Chunxian ,
  • PAN Jun ,
  • JIN Yi
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  • 1. School of Energy and Power Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
    2. Jiangsu Jinhe Energy Technology Co. Ltd, Zhenjiang 212400, China

Online published: 2024-09-08

Supported by

This work is supported by Industrial Foresight Project in Yangzhou City (No. YZ2021002), Transformation of Scientific and Technical Achievements Project in Yangzhou City (No. YZ2021121) and National Key Research and Development Plan of China (No. 2018YFA0702300).

Copyright

Science Press, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024

Abstract

To unravel the intricacies of two-phase gas-liquid flow characteristics and heat transfer behavior, an array mini-channel gravity plate heat pipe (AMGPHP) is proposed in this work, which allows for observing the internal changes in the state of the working fluids. The flow patterns such as pool flow, columnar flow, and slug flow, are experimentally explored and analyzed in detail. It is found that the optimal volume fill ratio is 20% by utilizing start-up time and thermal resistance as performance evaluation metrics. With this fill ratio, a medium optimization strategy by blending ethanol within R141b is proposed and evaluated. In comparison to pure working fluids, the heat transfer performance of AMGFHP in the binary fluid has been significantly augmented due to temperature and concentration shifts resulting from disparate boiling points. Under the 10% volume fraction ethanol blending condition, the equivalent thermal conductivity of the heat pipe is dramatically elevated, with a value of 3110 W/(m·°C), along with the reduction of the minimum start-up power to 4 W. In general, applying such a medium to heat pipes has considerable potential in practical applications.

Cite this article

FAN Gaoting , TANG Aikun , CAI Tao , SHAN Chunxian , PAN Jun , JIN Yi . Visualisation and Heat Transfer Performance of Mini-Channel Flat Heat Pipe with a Binary Mixture[J]. Journal of Thermal Science, 2024 , 33(5) : 1712 -1725 . DOI: 10.1007/s11630-024-1931-2

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