Performance of TiO<sub>2</sub> Nanofluid and DI Water Filled Flat Type Heat Pipe (FTHP) Internally Grooved at Various Fill Ratios and Inclinations

Abstract

Heat pipe operates, with a metallic wick (or grooved) installed inside the pipe, containing fluid under a pressure which permits evaporated vapour at the hot side to fill the core of the pipe and travel to the cooled side. The vapour condenses at cold side, transporting heat by this method. This study focuses on the heat transfer performance of flat type internally grooved heat pipe with two different working fluids DI water and TiO 2 nano fluid, used with various heat input (50, 60, 70 and 80W) and at two different orientation 45deg and 90deg of the pipe. The fill ratio used was 50% and 70%, concentration and the size of the nano particle were 80 mg/lit and 30 nm respectively. In this setup, the condenser section of the Flat Type Heat Pipe (FTHP) was cooled by rectangular aluminum fins. The result shows that the decisive factors of FTHP are the working fluids, internal grooves and inclination angle. The relatively high rate of heat transfer was achieved while using TiO 2 nano fluid at 90deg orientation with a fill ratio of 50% compared to FTHP with DI water.