Performance Characteristics of Potassium Heat Pipe Loaded with Argon

Abstract

The influence of inert gas on performance characteristics of liquid metal heat pipe was experimentally studied over a wide range of gas loading. In this experiment, potassium was used as a working fluid and argon was loaded in the heat pipe. The loading amount of argon ranged in initial pressure 10−2∼102Torr at room temperature. As the results, the followings became evident. During a start-up, an axial heat flux of the heat pipe is reduced from that corresponding to the sonic vapor flow by the presence of inert gas accumulating in the condenser section. In the region of high initial gas pressure, an over-all thermal conductance of the heat pipe can be described with the model due to “flat-front”, but, with decreasing initial gas pressure, the over-all thermal conductance deviates from the theoretical values obtained from the flat-front model and approaches to that corresponding to the sonic vapor flow. Also, the over-all thermal conductance is influenced by the effect of the gravitational force on the wic...