Gyeongsang National University

Abstract:- Numerical analysis and experimental study are performed to investigate the effect of heat load and operating temperature on the thermal performance of several variable conductance heat pipe heat pipe (VCHP) with screen meshed wick. The heat pipe is designed in 200 screen meshes, 500 ㎜ length and 12.7 ㎜ outer diameter tube of copper, water (4.8 g) is used as working fluid and nitrogen as non-condensable gas. Heat pipe used in this study has evaporator, condenser and adiabatic section, respectively. Analysis values and experimental data of wall temperature distribution along axial length are presented for heat transport capacity, condenser cooling water temperature change, degrees of an inclination angle and operating temperature. These analysis and experiment give the follow findings: For the same charging mass of working fluid, the operating temperature of heat pipe becomes to be high with the increasing of charging mass of NCG. When the heat flux at the evaporator section increases, the vapor pressure in the pipe rises and consequently compresses the NCG to the condenser end part and increases the active length of the condenser. It is found out that the operating temperature can be effectively controlled and the analytical results are in good agreement with those of experiment. Key-Words:- Mesh wick, working fluid charging mass, non-condensable gas (NCG), variable conductance hea