Published at : 25 Apr 2019
Volume : IJtech
Vol 10, No 2 (2019)
DOI : https://doi.org/10.14716/ijtech.v10i2.2667
Adi Winarta | -Applied Heat Transfer Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia -Mechanical Engineering Department, |
Nandy Putra | -Applied Heat Transfer Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia -Department of Mechanical Engineer |
Raldi Artono Koestoer | Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia |
Agus S. Pamitran | Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia |
Imansyah Ibnu Hakim | -Applied Heat Transfer Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia -Department of Mechanical Engineeri |
As a family of heat pipes, oscillating
heat pipes have many additional unique operating parameters. This paper
examined the heat transfer characteristics of an oscillating heat pipe that has
an effective length (leff)
of 500 mm and uses methanol as the working fluid. The effective length of 500
mm is not typically used in previous experimental setups. This structural
dimension of the oscillating heat pipe is widely used as a heat recovery
device. The heat pipe was tested with various heat supplies and inclinations.
The results show that the inclination makes a substantial contribution to the
heat transfer capability for large scale heat pipes. Decreasing the degree of
inclination reduces the capability of the heat pipe in handling the heat load.
Reducing the inclination also decreases the oscillatory motion, which is an
obvious “heat carrier” from the evaporator to the condenser.
Heat transfer characteristics; Inclinations; Methanol; Oscillating heat pipe
The oscillating heat pipe (OHP) is an up-and-coming
passive thermal transfer device that transports heat through the thermally
excited oscillating motions of a working fluid. OHP has become one of the
popular research topics since its discovery by Akachi in 1990 (Akachi, 1990).
Although more than two decades have passed since its invention, lots of
information regarding the OHP, such as information on the hydrodynamic and
thermodynamic coupling leading to complex combinations of two-phase
instabilities and a metastable fluid state, remains unknown (Khandekar &
Groll, 2004; Lips et al., 2010).
The OHP is built from a
small-diameter tube formed into a meandering snake shape tube and joined end to
end. First, the tube is evacuated and then filled partially with a working
fluid, which distributes itself naturally in the form of liquid-vapor plugs and
slugs inside the capillary tube. The device essentially works with two main
different pressures between the evaporator and the condenser. These two main
different pressures generate the driving force for the oscillatory motion of
the working fluid.
The OHP structure typically consists of the following
three parts: the evaporator, adiabatic, and condenser sections. Heat transfer
occurs in the evaporator and
condenser sections, while the
A PHP
is essentially a nonequilibrium heat transfer device whose performance success
depends primarily on the continuous maintenance of these nonequilibrium
conditions within the system. Because the length of each liquid slug and vapor
plug are different, it is not surprising that this working fluid flow both
undergoes complex oscillatory displacements and displays circulatory
characteristics (Tong et al., 2001). Ma stated that the OHP motion is a
mechanical vibration system with a vapor plug acting as a constant spring (Ma,
2015). Contrary to conventional heat pipes, OHP has a wickless structure
inside. Avionics and extraterrestrial applications need more lightweight cooling
devices, thus OHP is more preferable than conventional heat pipes with wick
structures.
Cui et al. studied OHP with distilled water, methanol,
acetone, and ethanol as working fluids (Cui et al., 2014). They found that
dry-out appeared locally on some individual pipes in the evaporator. Elevating
the power input would cause the dry-out to spread to several other locations.
Naik et al. examined acetone, methanol, and ethanol as working fluids at
various filling ratios (Naik et al., 2013). They found that acetone with a 60%
filling ratio had the lowest thermal resistance and the highest heat transfer
coefficient. Verma et al. demonstrated that methanol worked efficiently in a
variety of orientations compared with distilled water (Verma et al., 2013).
Tong et al. conducted a study of OHP visualization with methanol as the working
fluid (Tong et al., 2001). The visual study showed a high amplitude of
oscillation during the start-up stage. They also discovered that the bubble
displacement of methanol oscillation versus time is in the form of quasi-sine
waves. The water OHP had periodic “stationary–fast movement” oscillation motion
behavior. Xu et al. observed a difference in the advancing and receding angles
of water when traveling inside the channel due to high surface tension (Xu et
al., 2005). An experimental study by Saha et al. showed that methanol and water
should be the first consideration when choosing a working fluid for an open
loop OHP with vertical and horizontal orientations (Saha et al., 2012). Senjaya
and Inoue conducted an OHP simulation considering the dry-out phenomenon
(Senjaya & Inoue, 2014). These research studies stated that dry-out occurs
because there is not a sufficient supply of liquid to the evaporator. The
performance of the heat pipe seriously deteriorates if dry-out occurs. Xian et
al. tested an OHP with an evaporator length of 200 mm with water and ethanol as
the working fluids (Xian et al., 2010). They found that the maximum thermal
conductivity for the water OHP and the ethanol OHP peaks at 295 kW/m?K and 111
kW/m?K, respectively. Based on their results, there is a potential high thermal
transfer capability over long distances using an OHP design with the longest
effective length (leff).
Lin et al. conducted an experiment with different heat transfer lengths and
inner OHP diameters (Lin et al., 2011). In their study, all the OHPs used water
as the working fluid. They showed that the inner diameter of the OHP should be
greater than 0.8 mm in vertical bottom heating mode. At high heating power, the
performance of MOHP is at almost the same level when compared with a sintered
heat pipe in the horizontal orientation. Yang et al. conducted an experimental
work with an OHP length of approximately 600 mm for a solar collector
application (Yang et al., 2009). They found that the OHP could be applied
properly as a solar collector. The relative importance of testing the OHP under
high heat flux to prove that OHP could withstand a higher heat flux, as stated
by Akachi et al. that could operate as passive cooling up to 30 W/cm2
(Mameli et al., 2012).
Varying
the effects of gravity on the OHP orientation has become one of the popular
topics in the recent investigations (Mameli et al., 2014; Mameli et al., 2015;
Ayel et al., 2015; Mangini et al. 2017). The results of such studies show that
both gravity and heat input level influence the device operation. One of the
recent popular topics of experimental OHP research is varying the effect of
gravity. The change of performance of OHP due to gravitation is still growing
as a hot topic in many publications. Even though, there are still rare data
about these topics.
At the beginning, the OHP was designed with an
effective length (leff) of
no more than 20 mm. There is a lack of data on the thermal characteristics of
OHPs with effective lengths more than 200 mm. This scarcity makes sense because
the OHP was originally developed to provide thermal management solutions for
small electronic devices, especially electronic devices that have strict
requirements for space limitations and high heat flux rejection. However, OHPs
are starting to be investigated in heat exchange or heat recovery applications
using an leff exceeding
350 mm (Supirattanakul et al., 2011; Arab et al., 2012; Mahajan et al., 2017; Winarta
et al., 2017).
The objective of
this research is to experimentally study the heat transfer characteristics of
an OHP using methanol as the working fluid for different orientations and
higher heat flux. The OHP was manufactured with an leff of approximately 500 mm, which is not typically used
in previous OHP data experimental tests. Most of the heat transfer performance
for OHPs was designed for electronic thermal management. However, recent trends
include the implementation of OHPs in heat recovery and heat exchanger design
areas. The results of this experimental data will also provide more
experimental data for improving the characteristic behavior of the thermal
process in an OHP.
In
this paper, experimental studies were performed to achieve better understanding
of the heat transfer characteristics of an OHP with a 500 mm effective length
(leff) using 60% FR of
methanol for different inclinations.
The conclusions obtained in the experiment are summarized as follows: (1)
The heat pipe work capability was decreased by almost 83.33% from a vertical to
horizontal inclination. Inclinations affected the temperature fluctuations,
operational range and heat transfer capability to absorb heat at the
evaporator. Thus, it is found that specific inclination angles reduce the
capability of the OHP in handling a heat load; (2) The performance of the OHP
with leff 500 mm decreased
by 5.6 times when the orientation was changed from vertical to horizontal. The
inclination reduced the oscillatory motion, which acts as the “heat carrier”
from the evaporator to the condenser. Certain inclinations also reduce the
gravitational acceleration, which occurred at the highest level in the vertical
orientation. Hence, the restoring effects of the working fluid decrease at
reduced inclinations, in turn affecting the performance of the OHP.
The authors would like to
thank DRPM Universitas Indonesia through “TADOK 2018” scheme with contract number
1357/UN2.R3.1/HKP.05.00/2018 for funding this research.
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