Thermo-fluid dynamic analysis in a micro-textured evaporator based on microscale infrared/visible observations for loop heat pipes

Abstract

This paper presents a thermo-fluid dynamic analysis in a micro-textured evaporator for loop heat pipes (LHPs) that has a super wetting surface with ethanol on the basis of an experiment and modeling. In the experiment, three kinds of stainless steel plates with various morphologies of heat transfer surfaces were tested: a normal flat plate, a sandblasted plate, and a micro-groove plate. The measured contact angles between the surfaces and ethanol were 8.2° ± 1.3°, 0°, and 0°, respectively. Evaluation of the heat transfer performance and liquid-vapor interface behavior was conducted using microscale infrared and visible observations. As a result, it was revealed that the sandblasted plate and the micro-groove plate showed 7 times and 20 times higher heat transfer coefficient under high heat flux conditions respectively, compared with the normal flat plate. Different liquid-vapor interface behaviors were found between the plate types. In the modeling, the heat transfer coefficient was predicted for each case. It was found that nucleate boiling heat transfer induced by rough surface increased the heat transfer performance in the case of the sandblasted plate. In addition, it was revealed that the thin film evaporation at the long triple-phase contact line significantly enhanced heat transfer performance in the case of the micro-groove plate. The findings indicate a new promising approach to enhance the heat transfer coefficient of LHP evaporators.