Abstract:
The present research investigated the fabrication method of wickless heat pipes in the laboratory with emphasis on one that would lend itself to mass production of wickless heat pipes. The developed method used an oil bath to provide heat to the wickless heat pipes. The wickless heat pipes were made of pyrex glass (inner and outer diameters 8 and 10 mm and length 37 cm 1 cm). The working fluid was pure water, and the temperature of the oil bath was kept constant at 125 C. Two batches of heat pipes, totaling about 500, were manufactured. From the test results it was found that 70% of the total number had acceptable performance. On the average it took about 3 man-hours to make one wickless heat pipe. In addition a preliminary performance test method was developed to classify the newly fabricated heat pipes. The method employed a constant-temperature oil baht at 90 C and 70 C temperature-sensitive tapes to measure the response time (heating time) of each heat pipe. From testing the steady-state heat transfer performance at varions tilt angles (5, 25, 40, 70 and 90 degrees) it was found that the 70-degree tilt angle gave the highest heat transfer rate. In all two heat-pipe heat exchangers were designed and constructed. The first one had 27 head pipes. After some design improvement, an actual prototype containing 240 heat pipes was constructed. In testing the performance of both heat pipe heat exchangers, heat exchange between hot and cold fluids, both water, was carried out. In the performance test of the prototype the tilt angle of the exchanger was varied (5, 25, 40, 70 and 90 degrees) and it was found that the 90 degree tilt angle yielded the highest heat transfer rate. Furthermore, the flow rates of hot and cold water in the performance test were varied (4, 7, 10, 13 and 16 liters/min) and it was found that the higher the flow rates, the better the observe heat transfer rate. By the way, the flow rates in the exchanger were quite slow, and caused temperature distribution in the vertical direction (thermal stratification), thus resulting in high complexity. In addition it was found that the outside film resistance to heat transfer was highest and thus limited the heat transfer rate of the exchanger. The average values of UA obtained from the tests were approximately 0.12-0.43 Watt/ C/ heat pipe and the average heat transfer rates were 3-16 Watt/ heat pipe, which were considerably lower than the theoretical heat transfer limit of such wickless heat pipes (270-570 Watt at 30-80 C). The heat transfer performance of heat pipes within the exchanger was calculated using the theory of pool boiling and of Nusselt film. A computer program for design calculation was also developed.