Parametric Study on Ammonia-Based Loop Heat Pipe

Abstract

The loop heat pipe (LHP) is a two-phase heat transfer device used for thermal management in applications like space, mobile, laptop, electronic cooling. In the present study, modeling and parametric analysis of LHP was done by applying energy balance approach at different sections using Dev-C++ software. The effects of various parameters like sink temperature (5 °C, 10 °C, 22 °C), condenser effectiveness (0.4–0.9), vapor line diameter (0.0043 m, 0.0053 m, 0.0063 m), wick thickness (0.0073 m, 0.0048 m) and wick porosity (40%, 60%, 80%) were studied on the performance of LHP. The results obtained were validated with the results published in the literature. With increase in condenser effectiveness from 0.40 to 0.90, steady state operating temperature got decreased by 4.5 °C at a heat load of 600 W. The studies on wick porosity revealed that it has significant effect on the heat leak from evaporator to compensation chamber and the lower porosity leads to higher heat leak. From the analysis, an optimum performance of LHP was observed with 60% wick porosity, 0.0073 m wick thickness, 5 °C sink temperature, vapor line diameter of 0.0053 m and condenser effectiveness as 0.9 among the various parameters under investigations.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support and guidance provided by TED section of SAC-ISRO, Ahmedabad and the organizing committee of ICFAMMT-2022.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shail N. Shah

Shail N. Shah is a Ph.D. research scholar at Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India. He has more than 6 years of experience in teaching and research work. He has done 1 year research work at SAC-ISRO, Ahmedabad. His research area includes heat pipe, loop heat pipe, and renewable energy.

Sanjay V. Jain

Sanjay V. Jain is working as an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department at Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India, since February 2015. He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of teaching and research. He has published/presented more than 45 research papers in the area of small hydropower, renewable energy systems, and heat exchangers in international and national journals/conferences. He is a reviewer for more than 15 international journals in the field of energy, renewable energy, heat and mass transfer. He is actively involved in consultancy, research, and testing in the area of mechanical engineering.

Kamlesh Kumar Baraya

Kamlesh Kumar Baraya received his M. Tech. in thermal and fluid engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, and B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He has been working in Space Applications Center (ISRO), Ahmedabad for the last two and half decades. He has been involved in thermal design, analysis and testing of satellite payloads and their subsystems. His research interests include satellite thermal control, heat pipes, and loop heat pipes.

A. Madhusudan Achari

A. Madhusudan Achari is working as Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India since July 2016. He has more than 15 years of teaching experience. He obtained his BE (Mechanical Engineering) degree from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar in 2000. He obtained MTech in Thermal Engineering from VSSUT, Burla in 2008 followed by Ph.D. degree from IIT Kharagpur in 2015. He is a life member of ISTE and ISHMT. His research interest includes computational fluid dynamics, fluid flow, heat transfer, and turbulence.