Investigation of Heat Transfer in Evaporator of Microchannel Loop Heat Pipe

Abstract

Loop heat pipes (LHP) are heat transfer devices which use evaporation and condensation of working fluid to transfer heat and use capillary forces to provide fluid circulation in a closed loop. One of the main applications of LHP is cooling of electronic components. Further development of this field is associated with miniaturization. Thus, there are strict limits imposed upon size of elements of heat transfer devices in electronics cooling. One of such elements is an evaporator of the LHP, its main element. This paper deals with the LHP evaporator and is aimed at showing dependence of wick conductivity, thickness, and vapor flow geometry on overall heat transfer performance. An open loop experimental setup was created. Experiments were carried out with various configurations. The evaporator consisted of a microchannel (MC) plate, with groove widths of 100 and 300 μm, wick (metal and nonmetal porous materials were used) and a compensation chamber (CC). Heat load varied from 20 to 140 W in steps of 20 W. The area of the heater was equal to 19 × 19 mm2. The working fluid is de-ionized water. Experimental results include data on temperature distribution across the wick's height, temperature of microchannel's surface, and temperature of water in the compensation chamber. The results reveal a potential for performing optimization of the zone of evaporation in order to produce thinner LHP evaporators.