THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF SINTERED COPPER WICK HEAT PIPE USING WATER-BASED HYBRID NANOFLUIDS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Abstract

Relatively stable titania and silica-distilled water-based hybrid nano fluid along with surfactant are proved to be more efficient in thermal performance enhancement of heat pipes which are used for efficient cooling in electronic industry. In the current research, sintered copper wick heat pipe is utilized due to its high level of capillary action and low thermal resistance of copper wick. In this article, the vertically mounted copper sintered heat pipe containing hybrid nano fluids is investigated to measure the wall temperature as well as thermal resistance through force convection. The experimentation was carried out at heat loads of 4W, 8W, 12W, 16W and 20W by using water, titania-distilled water nano fluids and titania-silica/distilled water hybrid nano fluid filled in heat pipe in order to compare the results. By increasing the input power, the wall temperature increases from evaporator to condenser section. Maximum reduction in average vapor temperature of titania-silica hybrid nano fluid filled heat pipe and titania-distilled water nano fluid filled heat pipe was observed to be 35.74% and 31.10% as compared to water filled heat pipe at 20 W respectively. The maximum decrement in thermal resistance of titania-silica/distilled water hybrid nano fluid filled heat pipe and titania-distilled water nano fluid was observed to be 30.66% and 17.33% in comparison with water based filled heat pipe at 8 W respectively. The highest enhancement in heat transfer coefficient of titania-silica hybrid nano fluid filled heat pipe and titania-distilled water nano fluid filled heat pipe was achieved to be 29.73% and 16.21% compared to water filled heat pipe at 8 W respectively. A vi