Thermal Performance of a Small-scale Loop Heat Pipe for Terrestrial Application

지상용 소형 루프히트파이프 성능에 관한 연구

A small-scale loop heat pipe with polypropylene wick was fabricated and tested for its thermal performance. The container and tubing of the system was made of stainless steel and several working fluids were used to see the difference in performance including methanol, ethanol, acetone, R134a, and water. The heating area was 35 mm ${\times}$ 35 mm and there were nine axial grooves in the evaporator to provide a vapor passage. The pore size of the polypropylene wick inside the evaporator was varied from 0.5 m to 25 m. The size of condenser was 40 mm (W) ${\times}$ 50 mm (L) in which ten coolant paths were provided. The inner diameter of liquid and vapor transport lines were 2.0 mm and 4.0 mm, respectively and the length of which were 0.5 m. The PP wick LHP was operated with methanol, acetone, and ethanol normally. R134a was not compatible with PP wick and water was unsuitable within operating limit of $100^{\circ}C$. The minimum thermal load of 10 W (0.8 W/cm2) and maximum thermal load of 80 W (6.5 W/cm2) were achieved using methanol as working fluid with the condenser temperature of $20^{\circ}C$ with horizontal position.