A rotating heat pipe for cooling of superconducting machines

Abstract

A curved rotating heat pipe for use in superconducting motor and generator applications is introduced here. The heat pipe shown here is built so that both the condenser and evaporator sections are parallel to the axis of rotation. The condenser section is concentric with the axis of rotation while the evaporator section can be placed in contact with off-axis heat sources in the rotating machine. The geometry is achieved by incorporating an S-shaped curve between the on-axis rotating condenser section and the off-axis revolving evaporator section. We show that because the heat pipe is a sealed, passive heat transfer device with nearly isothermal operation, the heat pipe concept may be advantageous when considering the overall refrigeration system used with the superconducting machine. High-speed, room temperature test data with this heat pipe geometry indicate that the working fluid in the heat pipe continued to circulate, resulting in heat transfer with a high effective thermal conductivity, with the heat pipe operating under the influence of centrifugal accelerations approaching 400 g. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.