A novel Inorganic Aqueous Solution (IAS) is shown to have a better thermal performance than water when used as the working fluid in copper or aluminum made heat transfer devices. The effect of each chemical in the IAS and how it benefits heat transfer performance for different materials is explained. It was found that the IAS fluid reacts with copper and coats the surface with a layer of hydrophilic products during the initial boiling process. The surface roughness and wettability were increased which led to an enhanced heat transfer performance. The IAS passivates aluminum surfaces and makes water compatible for use with aluminum heat transfer devices. In addition, IAS has potential to improve the heat transfer performance by 50% lower the superheat when used with non-reactive material heat transfer devices.
Aluminum heat pipes have traditionally been incompatible with water and water-based fluids because they quickly react with the casing to generate non-condensable hydrogen gas (NCG). The NCGs inhibit the operation of evaporation and condensation based devices, eventually plugging the condenser end of the heat pipe. The heat pipe is then unable to remove heat from the condenser and the device fails. Terdtoon [1] found that these events often happen so rapidly between aluminum and water that measurements cannot even be taken. The present work tested two different, patented inorganic aqueous solutions (IAS) in a flat heat pipe setup. Grooved aluminum plates were used as the heat pipe wick and the tests were run with the heating section raised above the condenser. Compatibility between the working fluid and aluminum heat pipe was established by running the device to dryout and then reducing the heat flux to check for hysteresis. De-ionized water (DI water) was also tested, as a baseline, to establish that it did indeed fail as expected. Operating performance of each mixture was obtained from zero heat input until dryout was reached for multiple angles of inclination. The data show that both IAS mixtures are compatible with aluminum heat pipes and exhibit performance similar to that of a copper and water heat pipe. IAS and aluminum heat pipes could replace existing copper and water devices and deliver similar performance while reducing overall weight by more than three times. An IAS and aluminum heat pipe could also replace existing aluminum and ammonia combinations, currently favored in aerospace applications, to allow for increased performance and a larger operating temperature range while maintaining low device weight.
Frozen startup of phase change heat transfer devices is a complex problem that can have a large impact on heat transfer systems. A patented novel working fluid developed at UCLA comprised of an inorganic aqueous solution (IAS) was investigated for potential effects on the freeze/thaw capabilities in phase change heat transfer devices by examining the melting process of droplets. Preliminary visual tests were conducted to gain insight into any physical processes that surface augmentation created by this fluid may have on the freezing and melting process. These tests demonstrated significant differences in liquid spreading, the melting process, and the melting rate of droplets on surfaces pre-treated with IAS. Contact angle measurements exhibited enhanced wetting properties. SEM images of frozen droplets showed that liquid freezes in the small capillary wick formed by the initial evaporation of IAS. Video of melting droplets showed a significant increase in melting rate when the surface was first treated with IAS due to superior liquid spreading.
Investigation of bi-porous wicks has yielded an effective method for increasing surface heat transfer when the heat flux is high. Tests at UCLA have been aimed at augmenting biporous wicks in an effort to maximize their performance in thermal ground plane devices (TGP). The researchers have developed methods to more closely simulate the working environment inside of a TGP as well as added a monoporous layer between the biporous wick and the heater interface. In this work, it will be shown that both these assertions have been proven experimentally.
Investigation of bi-porous wicks has yielded an effective method for increasing surface heat transfer when the heat flux is high. It was further found that addition of a mono-porous layer on the heated surface significantly reduced the heated wall surface temperature. These bi-layer wicks were designed for use in 3″×5″ heat spreading devices called Thermal Ground Planes (TGP) in order to transfer heat from a 1 cm2 source. In this work we will investigate the performance of a biporous wick with a monoporous layer in various test set-ups to show the versatility of this heat pipe-substrate. Tests were performed at UCLA and at Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) to investigate the wick. Experiments at UCLA were conducted in a vacuum chamber setup to isolate the performance of the wick whereas at ACT the wick lined the evaporator side of a TGP. In order to more closely simulate the operating conditions in a TGP and characterize the vapor spacing parameter, some tests at UCLA were performed with a restrictor plate above the wick similar to the space above the wick in the TGP. The data collected using both these experiments showed similar trends of performance as a function of the spacing above the wick. The motivation of this paper is then to validate that the two testing methods provide similar results while independently addressing different parameters.
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