Experimental studies on a high performance compact loop heat pipe with a square flat evaporator

A thorough experimental investigation was carried out on a copper–water compact loop heat pipe (LHP) with a unique flat, square evaporator with dimension of 30 mm (L)×30 mm (W)×15 mm (H) and a connecting tube having an inner diameter of 5 mm. Using a carefully designed experimental system, the startup process of the LHP when subjected to different heat loads was studied and the possible mechanisms behind the observed phenomena were explored. Two main modes, boiling trigger startup and evaporation trigger startup, were proposed to explain the varying startup behavior for different heat loads. In addition, an expression was developed to describe the radius of the receding meniscus inside the wick, to balance the increased pressure drop along the LHP with increasing heat loads. Finally, insight into how the compact LHP can transfer heat loads of more than 600 W (with a heat flux in excess of 100 W/cm²) with no occurrence of evaporator dry-out was provided.     

Thermal conductivity of a metal-organic framework (MOF-5): Part II. Measurement

The thermal conductivity of MOF-5 single crystals is measured over a wide temperature range between 6 K and 300 K, using the longitudinal, steady-state heat flow method. Between 6 K and 20 K, the thermal conductivity increases with the increase in temperature and exhibits a peak near 20 K. This peak results from the crossover between the decreasing mean free path and the increasing phonon specific heat with the increasing temperature. From 20 K to 100 K, the thermal conductivity decreases rapidly with increasing temperature. Above 100 K, the thermal conductivity is nearly temperature independent, and its value at 300 K is 0.32 W/m K, a rather low value for crystals. The mean free path analysis shows that at high temperature, the phonon mean free path is minimized to the cage size due to the porous, flexible structure of MOF-5.     

Fabrication of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) pulsating heat pipe

This paper reports on the preliminary experimental results of using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to manufacture a visual pulsating heat pipe with length, width and internal diameter of 56 mm, 50 mm and 2 mm, respectively, including the manufacturing process, the vacuuming management for filling and packaging. The experiment used methanol and ethanol as working fluids. A fix filled ratio (about 60%) and different heating power values (3–8 W) were used to test the thermal performance. A high-speed video camera was used to record the working situation of the working fluid inside the channel. The results are discussed and analyzed.The experiment shows that methanol, in a vertical orientation, shows the most efficient results. When the heating power is 3 W, the thermal resistance is more than 4.5 °C/W below the value for ethanol as the working fluid. For a heating power of 4 W, the average temperature decreases to 15 °C in the evaporator. Also, gravity will have an impact on the PHP performance: the vertical orientation is better as compared to the horizontal orientation.     

A novel design of pulsating heat pipe with fewer turns applicable to all orientations

This study presents a novel pulsating heat pipe (PHP) concept that is functional even when PHP is with fewer turns and is operated horizontally. Two heat pipes were made of copper capillary tubes with an overall size of 122 mm × 57 mm × 5.5 mm is investigated, one had 16 parallel square channels having a uniform cross-section of 2 mm × 2 mm (uniform CLPHP), and the other had 16 alternative size of parallel square channels (non-uniform CLPHP; a cross-section 2 mm × 2 mm and a cross-section of 1 mm × 2 mm in alternating sequence). Test results showed that the performance of PHP rises with the inclination but the uniform channel CLPHP is not functional at horizontal configuration whereas the proposed non-uniform design is still functional even at horizontal arrangement. The thermal resistance for uniform PHP is relative insensitive to change of inclination when the inclination angle exceeds certain threshold value.     

Enhanced boiling of HFE-7100 dielectric liquid on porous graphite

Enhanced boiling of HFE-7100 dielectric liquid on porous graphite measuring 10 mm × 10 mm is investigated, and results are compared with those for smooth copper (Cu) of the same dimensions. Although liquid is out-gassed for hours before performing the pool boiling experiments, air entrapped in re-entrant type cavities, ranging in size from tens to hundreds of microns, not only enhanced the nucleate boiling heat transfer and the critical heat flux (CHF), but also, the mixing by the released tiny air bubbles from the porous graphite prior to boiling incipience enhanced the natural convection heat transfer by ∼19%. No temperature excursion is associated with the nucleate boiling on porous graphite, which ensues at very low surface superheat of 0.5–0.8 K. Conversely, the temperature overshoot at incipient boiling on Cu is as much as 39.2, 36.6, 34.1 and 32.8 K in 0 (saturation), 10, 20 and 30 K subcooled boiling, respectively. Nucleate boiling ensues on Cu at a surface superheat of 11.9, 10.9, 9.5 and 7.5 K in 0 (saturation), 10, 20 and 30 K subcooled boiling, respectively. The saturation nucleate boiling heat flux on porous graphite is 1700% higher than that on Cu at a surface superheat of ∼10 K and decreases exponentially with increased superheat to ∼60% higher near CHF. The CHF values of HFE-7100 on porous graphite of 31.8, 45.1, 55.9 and 66.4 W/cm² in 0 (saturation), 10, 20 and 30 K subcooled boiling, are 60% higher and the corresponding superheats are 25% lower than those on Cu. In addition, the rate of increase in CHF with increased liquid subcooling is 50% higher than that on Cu.     

Permeability and thermal conductivity of compact chemical and physical adsorbents with expanded natural graphite as host matrix

Permeability and thermal conductivity test units were designed to study the heat and mass transfer performance of compact chemical and physical adsorbents, i.e. compact CaCl₂ and activated carbon (AC) using expanded natural graphite (ENG) as host matrix. The thermal conductivity was studied by steady-state heat source method and the permeability was tested with nitrogen as a gas source. For the compact CaCl₂ adsorbents, results show that permeability and thermal conductivity vary with the ratio of ENG and the density of compact adsorbents. The value of permeability is 10^-13 ～ 10^-11 m² when the density of compact sample change from 400 kg/m³ to 550 kg/m³, and it keeps increasing linearly with the less ratio of ENG. The value of thermal conductivity is 1.08 W/(m·K), which is increased by 5 times compared with granular CaCl₂ when the density is 550 kg/m³ and the ratio of ENG is the minimum value of 16.7%. The compact physical adsorbent of AC with ENG as matrix has the highest thermal conductivity of 2.61 W/(m·K) when the ratio between ENG–AC is 1.5:1. Similarly, thermal conductivity drops down with the ratio of ENG decreasing. When the ratio of ENG reaches the minimum ratio of 28.6%, the thermal conductivity is 2.08 W/(m·K), which is increased by 5.8 times if compared with the result of granular AC, and corresponding permeability is 5.16 × 10^-11 m². The thermal conductivity and permeability of compact physical adsorbent of AC are all better than the values for the compact chemical adsorbent of CaCl₂.     

The particle thermal conductivity influence of nanofluids on thermal performance of the microtubes

The paper presents the numerical analysis on microchannel laminar heat transfer and fluid flow of nanofluids in order to evaluate the suitable thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles that results in superior thermal performances compared to the base fluid. The diameter ratio of the micro-tube was D_i/D_o = 0.3/0.5 mm with a tube length L = 100 mm in order to avoid the heat dissipation effect. The heat transfer rate was fixed to Q = 2 W. The water based Al₂O₃, TiO₂ and Cu nanofluids were considered with various volume concentrations ϕ = 1,3 and 5% and two diameters of the particles d_p = 13 nm and 36 nm. The analysis is based on a fixed Re and pumping power Π, in terms of average heat transfer coefficient and maximum temperature of the substrate. The results reveal that only the nanofluids with particles having very high thermal conductivity (λ_Cu = 401 W/m K) are justified for using in microcooling systems. Moreover, the analysis is sensitive to both the comparison criteria (Re or Π) and heat transfer parameters (h_ave or t_max).     

Experimental investigation on performance of a rotating closed loop pulsating heat pipe

Pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) are interesting heat transfer devices. Their simple, high maintaining, and cheap arrangement has made PHPs very efficient compared to conventional heat pipes. Rotating closed loop PHP (RCLPHP) is a novel kind of them, in which the thermodynamic principles of PHP are combined with rotation. In this paper, effect of rotational speed on thermal performance of a RCLPHP is investigated experimentally. The research was carried out by changing input power (from 25 W to 100 W, with 15 W steps) and filling ratio (25%, 50%, and 75%) for different rotational speeds (from 50 rpm to 800 rpm with an increment of 125 rpm). The results presented that at a fixed filling ratio, thermal resistance of RCLPHP decreased with increasing heat input applied to evaporator. Above a certain range of heat input, probability of partial dry-out of evaporator existed, which led into thermal performance deterioration of RCLPHP. Moreover, thermal resistance of RCLPHP decreased with increasing rotational speed and probability of partial dry-out in the evaporating section reached to its least amount.     

Numerical thermal optimization of the configuration of multi-holed clay bricks used for constructing building walls by the finite volume method

A comprehensive numerical study of the equivalent thermal conductivity of a multi-holed clay brick with the size of 240 × 115 × 90 (in mm) has been conducted, and 50 kinds of combination of holes and arrangements are examined. The indoor–outdoor temperature difference varies from 50 °C to 20 °C. The effects of following factors are studied in details: the hole surface radiation, the width-wise and length-wise hole numbers, and the indoor–outdoor temperature difference. The major findings are as follows: (1) the radiation between hole surfaces has some effect on the equivalent thermal conductivity, thus it should be taken into account; (2) the hole number and arrangement affect the thermal conductivity in a rather complicated manner. Analysis shows that depending on the relative importance of natural convection, surface radiation and heat conduction through the clay solid, the thermal conductivity may decrease with the hole number or increase with the hole number and (3) among the 50 kinds of combination, the optimum configuration is found which has five length-wise holes, four width-wise holes and all the holes are from bottom to top in the depth direction of a brick. Its equivalent thermal conductivity is 0.419 W/(m K), which is only 53.1% of solid clay of which it is made, showing great energy-saving possibility if it is adopted in the construction of building wall.Detailed discussion of the simulated results is conducted and flow field and temperature distributions are also provided for some typical configurations.     

Efficient spreaders for cooling high-power computer chips

Investigated is the performance of composite spreaders, consisting of a top layer of porous graphite (⩾0.4 mm), for enhanced cooling by nucleate boiling of FC-72 dielectric liquid, and a copper substrate (⩽1.6 mm), for efficient spreading of the dissipated thermal power by the underling 10 × 10 mm or 15 × 15 mm high-power computer chips. The analysis assumes uniform thermal power dissipation by the chips and calculates the square surface area of the spreader, along with the spreading, boiling and total thermal resistances, the maximum chip temperature, and the removed thermal power from the spreader surface by saturation or subcooled nucleate boiling of FC-72 liquid. These performance parameters are determined as functions of the thickness of the copper substrate and the size of the underlying chip. When compared with those of copper and porous graphite spreaders of the same total thickness, 2.0 mm, the performance of the composite spreaders is superior for cooling high-power computer chips. When cooled by nucleate boiling of 30 K subcooled FC-72 liquid, the composite spreader removes 160.3 W and 98.4 W of dissipated thermal power by the underlying 10 × 10 mm and 15 × 15 mm chips, at total thermal resistances of 0.29 and 0.48 °C/W. When the same spreader is cooled by saturation boiling of FC-72, the removed thermal power decreases to 85.6 W and 53.4 W, and the total thermal resistances also decrease to 0.12 and 0.20 °C/W, respectively. Although the calculated surface temperatures of the chips are not uniform, the maximum temperatures are <71 °C and the temperature differential across the chips is <8 °C. For the same cooling condition, the calculated surface area of the copper spreaders, the total thermal resistance, and the maximum chip temperature are much higher, but the removed thermal powers from the surface of spreaders are much lower than with composite spreaders. The calculated surface areas of the porous graphite spreaders are smaller, the thermal powers removed from surface of these spreaders are much lower and both the total thermal resistance and the maximum chip temperature are higher than those with composite spreaders.     

Sintered porous heat sink for cooling of high-powered microprocessors for server applications

This paper experimentally investigates the sintered porous heat sink for the cooling of the high-powered compact microprocessors for server applications. Heat sink cold plate consisted of rectangular channel with sintered porous copper insert of 40% porosity and 1.44 × 10^?11 m² permeability. Forced convection heat transfer and pressure drop through the porous structure were studied at Re ? 408 with water as the coolant medium. In the study, heat fluxes of up to 2.9 MW/m² were successfully removed at the source with the coolant pressure drop of 34 kPa across the porous sample while maintaining the heater junction temperature below the permissible limit of 100 ± 5 °C for chipsets. The minimum value of 0.48 °C/W for cold plate thermal resistance (R_cp) was achieved at maximum flow rate of 4.2 cm³/s in the experiment. For the designed heat sink, different components of the cold plate thermal resistance (R_cp) from the thermal footprint of source to the coolant were identified and it was found that contact resistance at the interface of source and cold plate makes up 44% of R_cp and proved to be the main component. Convection resistance from heated channel wall with porous insert to coolant accounts for 37% of the R_cp. With forced convection of water at Re = 408 through porous copper media, maximum values of 20 kW/m² K for heat transfer coefficient and 126 for Nusselt number were recorded. The measured effective thermal conductivity of the water saturated porous copper was as high as 32 W/m K that supported the superior heat augmentation characteristics of the copper–water based sintered porous heat sink. The present investigation helps to classify the sintered porous heat sink as a potential thermal management device for high-end microprocessors.     

Single-phase heat transfer in the high temperature multiple porous insulation

An experimental study of steady state flow and heat transfer has been conducted for the multiple plate porous insulation used in the reactor pressure vessels of ‘Magnox’ nuclear power stations. The insulation pack studied, consisting of seven dimpled stainless steel sheets and six plane stainless steel sheets, was of the type installed in the Sizewell A plant. A large scale experimental test facility, based on the guarded hot plate method, was used for measuring the effective thermal conductivity of Magnox reactor pressure vessel insulation, which consists of alternate layers of plain steel foil and dimpled foil. The measurements were made both with the fluid within the insulation pack nominally stationary and with an imposed flow through it, simulating leakage through the insulation pack. The experimental conditions corresponded to a heat flux of 75–1000 W/m², fluid pressures of atmospheric to 5 bar gauge, pack orientations in range of 0°–45° relative to the horizontal, leakage velocities ranging from 0.05 m/s to 0.20 m/s and inlet air bulk temperatures ranging from 18 °C to 290 °C. Local values of effective thermal conductivity of 0.04–0.23 W/m K were obtained for the above experimental conditions. The heat transfer modes in the insulation pack were conduction through the contacting metallic foils, thermal radiation across the gas gaps, and conduction and convection in the air. The effective thermal conductivity of the porous insulation increased with increasing air pressure, inclination angle, and air velocity. Buoyancy effects increased with increasing inclination angle and air pressure.     

An apparatus for the routine measurement of thermal conductivity of materials for building application based on a transient hot-wire method

An apparatus has been designed and developed for the measurement of the thermal conductivity of samples of non-metallic materials whose thermal conductivity is quite low (in the range between 0.2 and 4 W/m K) by the transient hot-wire method. It is especially conceived to ensure short time consuming and economic measurement of the thermal conductivity of mortar and lateritic bricks for building application.Thermal conductivity is measured by tracking the thermal pulse propagation induced in the sample by a heating source consisting of a Nickel alloy wire. The temperature is measured on the wire by means of two T type (Copper–Constantan) thermocouples. The heat impulse transferred to the wire between two observed times gives a temperature increment of 2–10 °C, depending on the thermal conductivity of the material tested and on the preselected level of the heating power supplied.The thermal conductivity of the materials can be obtained in a comparative way or in a semi-absolute way. In both cases a preliminary calibration of the instrument, obtained with a reference sample whose thermal conductivity previously certified by absolute methods, is in the range required. In the second case, the calibration is necessary to obtain the characteristic curves of the instrument.The paper shows the measurement obtained using materials with thermal conductivity between 0.2 and 1.5 W/m K. In good experimental conditions the accuracy of the measurements is within 5%.The proposed apparatus offers significant advantages, mostly in terms of economy and flexibility, over systems currently in use and over similar systems based on transient methods.     

Effects of sputtering parameters on the performance of electrodes fabricated for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

One way to alleviate the emission of air pollutants and CO₂ due to burning fossil fuels is the use of fuel cells. Sputter deposition techniques are good candidates for the fabrication of electrodes used for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Input power and sputtering-gas pressure are two important parameters in a sputtering process. However, little is known about the effects of these sputtering parameters on the performance of PEMFC electrodes. Therefore, this study applied a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputter deposition process to prepare PEMFC electrodes and investigated the effects of RF power and sputtering-gas pressure in electrode fabrication on electrode/cell performance. At a Pt loading of 0.1 mg cm⁻², the electrode fabricated at 100 W, 10⁻³ Torr was found to exhibit the best performance mainly due to its lowest kinetic (activation) resistance (dominating the cell performance) in comparison to those fabricated by 50 and 150 W at 10⁻³ Torr, as well as by 10⁻⁴ and 10⁻² Torr at 100 W. In the tested ranges, the control of sputtering-gas pressure seems to be more critical than that of RF power for the activation loss. In addition to electrochemically active surface area, electrode microstructure should also be responsible for electrode/cell polarization, particularly the activation polarization.     

Development of a multiple layer vacuum insulation chip

Advent of micro thermal devices such as lab-on-a-chip and micro heat pump necessitates development of highly effective insulation chips or layers. This paper reports the development of a vacuum insulation chip (VIC) having very low effective thermal conductivity and very small thickness. Fifty nanometer thickness metal coating on both sides of an LCD glass chip and 5 μm vacuum gap are stacked in a series to decrease the heat transfer by radiation. An array of support legs is necessary to maintain the structure under the atmospheric pressure. Design of VIC involves trade-offs between the heat conduction through the multi-layer structure and the mechanical strength. A model to determine the actual design values is proposed. The results are in reasonable agreement with the more refined results using commercial numerical codes. Based on these results, a VIC of 32 × 32 × 1.88 mm³ is manufactured, and the effective thermal conductivity is measured by guarded hot plate method. The chip shows effective thermal conductivities of 0.0015 and 0.001 W/m K at vacuum levels of 1.33 and 0.24 Pa (N/m²), respectively.     

Thermal conductivity of metal-organic framework 5 (MOF-5): Part I. Molecular dynamics simulations

The phonon thermal conductivity of MOF-5, a metal-organic framework crystal with a phenylene bridge, is predicted between temperatures of 200 K and 400 K using molecular dynamics simulations and the Green–Kubo method. The simulations are performed using interatomic potentials obtained using ab initio calculations and experimental results. The predicted thermal conductivity of MOF-5 is low for a crystal, 0.31 W/m K at a temperature of 300 K, and its temperature dependence is very weak. By decomposing the thermal conductivity into components associated with short- and long-range acoustic phonons, and optical phonons, the weak temperature dependence is found to be related to the mean free path of the majority of phonons, which is of the order of lattice parameter (and is essentially temperature independent). To interpret the results, an analytical thermal conductivity relation is derived, which reduces to the Cahill–Pohl and Slack models under appropriate assumptions. The relation contains a critical frequency, which determines the relative contributions of the short- and long-range acoustic phonons. The small long-range acoustic phonon contribution is found to be related to the long and flexible phenylene bridge, and to the mass mismatch between the cages and the bridges.     

Assessing the influence of four bonding methods on the thermal contact resistance of open-cell aluminum foam

A thermal application of open-cell aluminum foam typically requires it to be bonded on a substrate. The resulting thermal contact resistance is investigated for four bonding methods. This is done by minimizing the difference between the calculated heat transfer via a zeroth order model and experimental data. The bonded metal foam, used to obtain the experimental data, are manufactured in-house. This allows varying pore size, porosity, aluminum alloy, foam height, air mass flow rate, air inlet temperature and bonding method. The latter is found to have an overwhelming impact. The resulting four thermal contact resistances are: 0.7 × 10^?3 m²K/W for brazing, 0.88 × 10^?3 m²K/W for co-casting, 1.25 × 10^?3 m²K/W for a single-epoxy bonding and 1.88 × 10^?3 m²K/W for a press-fit bonding. The uncertainty on these values is 11%.     

Transient and isothermal characteristics of a particular heat pipe

This paper presents a simple and rapid mathematical model to calculate the non-steady-state startup process and study the isothermal characteristics of a particular heat pipe. The model takes into consideration the special structure and usage conditions, where vapor temperature in the heat pipe changes only over time. This vapor temperature change correlation is calculated numerically and is set as the temperature boundary condition for the working well. The temperature, velocity and pressure distribution in the working well are then solved using FLUENT. The results manifest that the time required for approaching steady condition are 450 s, 550 s and 600 s with water bath temperatures of 330 K, 340 K and 350 K, respectively. The comparison of the calculations and experimental data shows good agreement, and the maximum deviation is 3.7 K.     

Vacuum insulation properties of phenolic foam

Characteristic properties of phenolic foam as the interstitial material of a vacuum insulation panel are investigated experimentally. For the measurement of effective thermal conductivity, a vacuum guarded hot plate (VGHP) apparatus is used and the conductivity is measured at various vacuum levels. Radiative properties are found using a Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) device. Solid conductivity is estimated using the porosity of the foam. Effective thermal conductivity at high level of vacuum is measured to be 5 mW/m K which is sum of solid conductivity (2.56 mW/m K) and radiative conductivity (2.44 mW/m K) with 5% of measurement uncertainty. The pore size of the foam is estimated to be 260 μm using rarefied gas conduction theory. This ensures insulation performance of phenolic foam up to about 10^?3 atm. Other practical characteristics of phenolic foam as the VIP core material are also discussed.     

Multi-objective thermal design optimization and comparative analysis of electronics cooling technologies

A multi-objective thermal design optimization and comparative study of electronics cooling technologies is presented. The cooling technologies considered are: continuous parallel micro-channel heat sinks, in-line and staggered circular pin-fin heat sinks, offset strip fin heat sinks, and single and multiple submerged impinging jet(s). Using water and HFE-7000 as coolants, Matlab’s multi-objective genetic algorithm functions were utilized to determine the optimal thermal design of each technology based on the total thermal resistance and pumping power consumption under constant pressure drop and heat source base area of 100 mm². Plots of the Pareto front indicate a trade-off between the total thermal resistance and pumping power consumption. In general, the offset strip fin heat sink outperforms the other cooling technologies.