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Thermal performance of heat pipe with suspended nano-particles

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Abstract

Nanofluids are employed as the working medium for a conventional cylindrical heat pipe. A cylindrical copper heat pipe of 19.5 mm outer diameter and 400 mm length was fabricated and tested with two different working fluids. The working fluids used in this study are DI-water and Nano-particles suspension (mixture of copper nano particle and DI-water). The overall heat transfer coefficient of the heat pipe was calculated based on the lumped thermal resistance network and compared with the heat transfer coefficient of base fluid filled heat pipe. There is a quantitative improvement in the heat transfer coefficient using nano-particles suspension as the working medium. A heat transfer correlation was also developed based on multiple regression least square method and the results were compared with that obtained by the experiment.

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Abbreviations

c p :

Specific heat of cooling water, J/kg K

d:

Wick diameter, m

g:

Acceleration due gravity, m/s2

h:

Coefficient of heat transfer, W/m2K

L:

Length, m

\(\dot m\) :

Mass flow rate, kg/s

Nu:

Nusselt number, Nu = hl c /k

Pr:

Prandtl number, Pr = μ l c pl /k l

q:

Heat flux, w/m2

Q:

Heat transfer rate, W

r:

Radius, m

Re:

Reynolds number, Re = Q/πDh fg μ l

T:

Temperature, K

ϕ:

Volume fraction of nano particles

μ:

Viscosity, Ns/m2

k :

Thermal conductivity, W/m K

σ:

Surface tension, N/m

ϵ:

Porosity of wick

ρ:

Density, kg/m3

δ:

Wick thickness, m

ε:

Heat pipe wall thickness, m

c:

Condenser, critical

e:

Evaporator

exp:

Experimental

eff:

Effective

s:

solid

sat:

Saturation

v:

Vapor

l:

Liquid

ω:

Wire

w :

Wick, wall

p:

Pipe

i:

Inner

o:

Outer

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Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to the anonymous referees for the critical comments on the draft of the paper and suggesting some recent papers on the subject. One of the authors (KNS) expresses sincere thanks to DAAD, Germany for the offer of a visiting Professorship at the University of Applied Sciences, Rosenheim during the final phase of the research. He also thanks the host Professor Dr. Martin Neumier for his support in Rosenheim.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gurgaon College of Engineering, Gurgaon, 122413, India

    K. N. Shukla

  2. Centre for Research in Thermal Management, Karunya University, Coimbatore, 641114, India

    A. Brusly Solomon, B. C. Pillai, B. Jacob Ruba Singh & S. Saravana Kumar

Authors
  1. K. N. Shukla
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  2. A. Brusly Solomon
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  3. B. C. Pillai
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  4. B. Jacob Ruba Singh
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  5. S. Saravana Kumar
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Correspondence to K. N. Shukla.

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Shukla, K.N., Solomon, A.B., Pillai, B.C. et al. Thermal performance of heat pipe with suspended nano-particles. Heat Mass Transfer 48, 1913–1920 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-012-1028-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-012-1028-4

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