The influence of longitudinal vibrations on the heat transfer performance of inclined heat pipes

Abstract

This study focused on investigating the influence of longitudinal vibrations, the condensation section temperature, and the inclination angles on the heat transfer performance of grooved cylindrical copper heat pipes with lengths of 600 and 150 mm and an outer diameter of 8 mm. The inclination angles of the tested heat pipes were 0°, ±45°, and ±90°. Longitudinal vibrations with frequencies of 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 Hz and amplitudes of 2.8, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 mm, which resulted in accelerations between 0.1 and 1.01 g, were experimentally tested. The condensation section temperatures were set at 20°C, 30°C, and 40°C. A heating jacket and a cooling sleeve were installed at the evaporation and condensation sections of the test cell to simulate a constant heat flux and a constant temperature boundary, respectively. The results showed that with the heat pipe placed with the condensation section on top and the evaporation section on bottom, a fairly low and constant thermal resistance (approximately 0.25 K/W for the 600-mm heat pipe and 0.75-1.2 K/W for the 150-mm heat pipe) was obtained, both with and without heat pipe vibration and regardless of the condensation section temperature.