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An investigation of thermal performance improvement of a cylindrical heat pipe using Al2O3 nanofluid

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Abstract

In this study, effect of Al2O3 nanofluid on thermal performance of cylindrical heat pipe is investigated. An analytical model is employed to study the thermal performance of the heat pipe utilizing nanofluid and the predicted results are compared with the experimental results. A substantial change in the heat pipe thermal resistance, effective thermal conductivity and entropy generation of the heat pipe is observed when using Al2O3 nanofluid as a working fluid. It is found that entropy generation in the heat pipe system decreases when using a nanofluid due to the lower thermal resistance of the heat pipe which results in an improved thermal performance. It is shown that the proposed model is in reasonably good agreement with the experimental results and can be used as a fast technique to explore various features of thermal characteristics of the nanofluid based heat pipe.

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Abbreviations

h:

Convective heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)

hfg :

Latent heat of the working fluid (KJ/Kg)

k:

Thermal conductivity (W/mK)

keff :

Effective thermal conductivity of the wick (W/mK)

L:

Length of the heat pipe (m)

Lc :

Length of the condenser section (m)

La :

Length of the adiabatic section (m)

Le :

Length of the evaporator section (m)

P:

Pressure (Pa)

Q:

Input heat (W)

Rv :

Vapor core radius (m)

Ro :

Heat pipe’s outer radius (m)

Rw :

Heat pipe’s inner radius (m)

S:

Entropy (J/K)

Th :

Heat source temperature (K)

Tl :

Heat sink temperature (K)

v1 :

Vapor injection velocity (m/s)

v2 :

Vapor suction velocity (m/s)

ɛ :

Porosity of the wick (%)

ρ:

Density (kg/m3)

μ:

Dynamic viscosity (Pa.s)

l :

Liquid phase

v :

Vapor

nf :

Nanofluid

p :

Particle

s :

Solid

+:

Dimensionless quantity

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44, Stockholm, Sweden

    M. Ghanbarpour & R. Khodabandeh

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521-0425, USA

    M. Ghanbarpour & K. Vafai

Authors
  1. M. Ghanbarpour
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  2. R. Khodabandeh
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  3. K. Vafai
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Correspondence to K. Vafai.

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Ghanbarpour, M., Khodabandeh, R. & Vafai, K. An investigation of thermal performance improvement of a cylindrical heat pipe using Al2O3 nanofluid. Heat Mass Transfer 53, 973–983 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-016-1871-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-016-1871-9

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