SREE CHITHRA THIRUNAL COLLEGE

OF ENGINEERING
TRIVANDRUM-18

STUDY OF CONVENTIONAL
AND MODERN HEAT PIPE
Guided By, SHEFIN M
SRI.RAJESH S P 12402053
(ASSISTANT PROFESSOR U7
MECHANICAL DEPARTMENT)
 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PRINCIPLE
STRUCTURE
PROPERTIES
TYPES OF HEAT PIPES
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
APPLICATION
CONCLUSION
REFERENCE
 What is a Heat Pipe?
A heat pipe heat exchanger is a simple device which is made
use of to transfer heat from one location to another, using an
evaporation-condensation cycle.
Heat pipes are referred to as the "superconductors" of heat due
to their fast transfer capability with low heat loss.
 Working Principle

The heat input region of the heat pipe is called evaporator,

the cooling region is called condenser.
In between the evaporator and condenser regions, there may
be an adiabatic region
 Working
A basic Heat Pipe consists of a sealed upright pipe containing a
small portion of phase-changing fluid .
The remainder of the inner volume of the pipe is occupied either by
the thermal fluid vapour or by a mix of vapour and nonphase-
changing gas (such as air).
Due to gravity, the fluid rests at the bottom of the pipe (the heat
source region, or evaporator of the HP), where it will be heated and
boiled under the action of the heat crossing the pipe walls through
conduction.
The vaporized fluid will eventually condense at the upper part of the
pipe wall releasing its heat to the heat sink.
Once condensed, the liquid droplets will fall back to the bottom of
the pipe, completing the cycle and being ready to vaporize and
condense over and over again
 Components of Heat Pipe
Container
Working Fluid
Wick or Capillary Structure
 1.Container
The function of the container is to isolate the working
fluid from the outside environment.
Selection of the container material depends on many
factors. These are as follows:

Compatibility (both with working fluid and external

environment)
Strength to weight ratio
Thermal conductivity
Ease of fabrication, including welding, machine ability
and ductility
Porosity
Wettability
 Container materials
Of the many materials available for the container, three are by
far the most common in use- copper, aluminum, and stainless
steel.
Copper is eminently satisfactory for heat pipes
operating between 0200C in applications such as electronics
cooling.
While commercially pure copper tube is suitable, the oxygen-
free high conductivity type is preferable.
Like aluminum and stainless steel, the material is readily
available and can be obtained in a wide variety of diameters
and wall thicknesses in its tubular form.
 2.Working Fluid
The prime requirements are:
compatibility with wick and wall material
Good thermal stability
wettability of wick and wall materials
vapor pressure not too high or low over the operating
temperature range
high latent heat
high thermal conductivity
low liquid and vapor viscosities
high surface tension
acceptable freezing or pour point
Examples of Working Fluid
 3.Wick Structure
It is a porous structure made of materials like steel,aluminium, nickel or
copper in various ranges of pore sizes.
The prime purpose of the wick is to generate capillary pressure to transport
the working fluid from the condenser to the evaporator.
It must also be able to distribute the liquid around the evaporator section to
any area where heat is likely to be received by the heat pipe.
 Wicks are fabricated using metal foams, and more particularly
felts, the latter being more frequently used. By varying the
pressure on the felt during assembly, various pore sizes can be
produce.
The maximum capillary head generated by a wick increases
with decrease in pore size.
The wick permeability increases with increasing pore size.
Another feature of the wick, which must be optimized, is its
thickness. The heat transport capability of the heat pipe is
raised by increasing the wick thickness.
Other necessary properties of the wick are compatibility with
the working fluid and wettability.
Wick working phenomenon
 Wick Design
Two main types of wicks: homogeneous and composite.

Homogeneous- made from one type of material or

machining technique. Tend to have either high capillary
pressure and low permeability or the other way around.
Simple to design, manufacture, and install.

Composite- made of a combination of several types of

porosities of materials configurations. Capillary pumping
and axial fluid transport are handled independently.
 Three properties effect wick design
High pumping pressure- a small capillary pore radius (channels
through which the liquid travels in the wick) results in a large
pumping (capillary) pressure.

Permeability - large pore radius results in low liquid pressure

drops and low flow resistance. Design choice should be made
that balances large capillary pressure with low liquid pressure
drop. Composite wicks tend to find a compromise between the
two.

Thermal conductivity - a large value will result in a small

temperature difference for high heat fluxes.
 Types of Heat Pipes
Thermosyphon
Leading edge
Rotating and revolving
Cryogenic pumped loop heat pipe
Flat Plate
Micro heat pipe
Nano Heat pipe
Variable conductance
Capillary pumped loop heat pipe
 Variable Conductance Heat Pipe
(VCHP)
One way of controlling the phase changing temperature
of a fluid would be to control its pressure.
If the pressure could be kept constant at a specified
value, then a certain HP operating temperature could be
regulated. The use of an expansion tank attached to the
top of the HP will enable this outcome.
Therefore, pressure would not build up during
operation as it would in a standard HP and the boiling
would not be hampered by an excessive increase of
pressure. Such a system is called a Variable
Conductance Heat Pipe (VCHP).
 MICRO HEAT PIPES
The theory of micro heat pipe was introduced by Cotter in
1984. He defined a micro heat pipe as "so small that the
mean curvature of the liquid-vapor interface is comparable
in magnitude to the reciprocal of the hydraulic radius of the
total flow channel".
A MHP is a small-scale device with a hydraulic diameter on
the order of 100 and a length of several centimeters. It
differs from a conventional heat pipe in that it is much
smaller, 5 to 500 in hydraulic diameter.
In general, it does not contain a wick structure to assist the
return of the condensate to the evaporator section. It
rather uses capillary forces generated in the sharp edges of
the pipe's cross section.
 Micro heat pipe is a small metal pipe with a capillary
structure (wick) on the inner wall. The micro heat pipe is a
vacuum inside with a small quantity of working fluid.
When a section of the micro heat pipe is heated, the heat is
quickly transferred to a lower temperature section of the
micro heat pipe in the following way
1.The working fluid evaporates at the heated section.
2.The vapor moves to the lower temperature section.
3.The vapor condenses in the lower temperature section.
The condensed working fluid flows back to the heated
section through capillary action. The micro heat pipe is a
super conductor of heat for micro device cooling. The
micro heat pipe offers increased downsizing and improved
performance for all electronic devices.
 NANO HEAT PIPE
Heat pipes with Nano fluid as working fluid can be referred as Nano
heat pipe
The heat transfer capability of the all heat transfer devices including
heat pipe is limited by the working fluid transport properties.
To overcome these limitations, the thermo physical properties of
the working fluid have to be improved.
Heat Pipe Using Copper Nano fluid with Aqueous Solution of
nButanol is used.
The heat transfer rate of heat transfer devices can be improved by
adding additives to the working fluids to change the fluid transport
properties and flow features.
One of the methods is to use the aqueous solutions of alcohols,
with chain lengths longer than four carbon atoms.
 Thermosyphons
Most heat pipes use a wick and capillary action to return the
liquid from the condenser to the evaporator.
The liquid is sucked up to the evaporator, similar to the way
that a sponge sucks up water when an edge is placed in contact
with a water pool.
The wick allows the heat pipe to operate in any orientation, but
the maximum adverse elevation (evaporator over condenser) is
relatively small, on the order of 25 cm long for a typical water
heat pipe.
Taller heat pipes must be gravity aided. When the evaporator is
located below the condenser, the liquid can drain back by
gravity instead of requiring a wick. Such a gravity aided heat
pipe is known as a thermosyphon
 Loop heat pipes
Capillary pumped loops (CPL), and loop heat pipes (LHP), are an attractive
alternative for heat regulation. In the LHP the capillary pumped evaporator
is used instead of a boiler.
Such an evaporator is more flexible from the point of view of its orientation
space and is more compact. In the LHP there is a possibility to use an
evaporator above the condenser.
In the LHP the vapour flows through the vapour channels towards the
condenser and the liquid goes back the evaporator due to the capillary
pressure head of the porous wick.
In the near future an LHP should be used as thermal control devices in
scientific and telecommunication satellites (efficient and flexible thermal
link between dissipative elements and radiators.
 Spaghetti heat pipes
The small diameter (3 mm) bendable SS spaghetti heat
pipes are similar to pulsating heat pipes, but have a
compact condenser and large surface evaporator.
An example of a spaghetti heat pipe filled with
ammonia, shown in is disposed inside the refrigerator
chamber in such a way that food can be kept within the
refrigerating temperature range as uniformly as
possible.
The spaghetti heat pipe is thermally linked with an
evaporator of the sorption refrigerator(heat pipe
condenser) and has a good thermal contact with this
evaporator.
 Sorption heat pipe
The sorption heat pipe (SHP) is a novelty and
combines the enhanced heat and mass transfer in
conventional heat pipes with sorption phenomena
of a sorbent bed.
Sorption heat pipe could be used as a sorption
heat transfer element and be cooled and heated as
a heat pipe.
The sorption heat pipe has a sorbent bed at one
end and a condenser and evaporator at the other
end.
 Advantages Of Heat Pipes
May reduce or eliminate the need for reheat
Allow cost effective manner to accommodate new
ventilation standards
Requires no mechanical or electrical input
Are virtually maintenance free
Provide lower operating costs
Last a very long time
Readily adaptable to new installations and retrofitting
existing A/C units
Are environmentally safe.
 Heat Pipe Applications
Electronics cooling- small high performance components cause
high heat fluxes and high heat dissipation demands.Used to
cool transistors and high density semiconductors.

Aerospace- cool satellite solar array, as well as shuttle leading

edge during reentry.

Heat exchangers- power industries use heat pipe heat

exchangers as air heaters on boilers.

Other applications- production tools, medicine and human body

temperature control, engines and automotive industry.
 Applications
LAPTOP HEAT PIPE SOLUTION
Heat pipes used in processor
HEAT PIPE IN CPU
 CONCLUSION
Heat pipe is a thermal super conductor under
certain heat transfer condition they can transfer
the heat energy 100 times more than available
best conductive materials, because of negligible
temp. Gradient exist in heat pipe.

The heat pipe has compactness, light weight,

reversible in operation and high thermal flux
handling capability makes heat pipe to use new
modern era and in many wide variety application
to overcome critical heat dissipation problem.
 REFERENCES
R.R. Riehl, Analysis of loop heat pipe behavior using nanofluid Heat
Powered Cycles International Conference (HPC), New Castle, UK, Paper
06102, 2006.
Midwest Research Institute, Heat Pipes, NASA Report NASA CR-2508,
pg. 19, Jan 1, 1975.
Pressure Controlled Heat Pipe Applications, W. G. Anderson et al., 16th
International Heat Pipe Conference, Lyon, France, May 20-24, 2012.
S.H. Noie, Heat transfer characteristics of a two-phase closed
thermosyphon, Applied Thermal Engineering vol.25, 2005, pp. 495506.
www.heatpipe.com.
www.cheresources.com.
www.indek.com
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