ReuseThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence only allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you credit the authors, but you can't change the article in any way or use it commercially. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Abstract: The coupling effect of non-condensable gas (NCG) and evaporator tilts on the steady state operation of a loop heat pipe (LHP) was investigated both experimentally and theoretically in this work. Nitrogen was injected quantitatively into an ammonia-stainless steel LHP to simulate NCG, and the steady state characteristics of the LHP were studied under three typical evaporator tilts. According to the experimental results, the main conclusions below can be drawn. (1) The temperature is the highest under adverse tilt and the lowest under favorable tilt no matter whether there is NCG in LHP. (2) The existence of NCG could cause the increase of temperature under all three typical evaporator tilts, but the temperature increment caused by NCG seems to be relatively small under adverse tilt. (3) The increments of the temperature caused by NCG display different patterns under different tilts. Theoretical analysis was conducted to explain the results: the temperature under the coupling effect of NCG and evaporator tilt was determined by the energy balance between the heat leak from evaporator to compensation chamber and the cooling capacity of returning subcooled liquid. With the increase of heat load, the augmentation of heat leak caused by NCG and the enhancement of subcooled liquid cooling effect were incongruent. The coupling effect of NCG and evaporator tilts should be considered in the terrestrial application of LHP.

Considering the mass and energy sources carried by the accumulated ice layer, an unsteady heat and mass transfer model of the runback water film on the deicing surface is established to simulate aircraft electro-thermal deicing process. With the extension of the freezing coefficient to the transient calculation, the coupled heat transfer of the runback water and the solid skin is solved at each time step by a temperature-based method. Unsteady numerical simulation is carried out for the electro-thermal deicing system of a NACA 0012 airfoil. The temperature variations with time are in acceptable agreement with the literature data, and the unsteady temperature-based deicing model is verified. The calculation results of temperature, runback water flux and ice thickness on the deicing surface are analyzed at different time points, and it is shown that the unsteady electro-thermal deicing model can capture the main features of the icing, ice melting and re-freezing processes in the transient deicing simulations.

This is a repository copy of Comparative study of two loop heat pipes using R134a as the working fluid.

The coupling effect of evaporator/condenser elevations and non-condensable gas (NCG) on the performance of a loop heat pipe (LHP) operating in gravitational field was investigated experimentally. Ammonia and nitrogen were selected as the working fluid of LHP and the simulated gas of NCG, respectively. The experiments were conducted at three kinds of evaporator/condenser elevations, namely zero elevation, adverse elevation and positive elevation. Experimental results show that NCG will cause an increase in operating temperature, but the trends varies at different evaporator/condenser elevation elevations. The temperature rises caused by NCG at the zero and adverse elevations are negatively correlated with heat load, and the maximum temperature increments are both at the minimum heat load of 15 W, but the influence of NCG is less at adverse elevation. On the other hand, at favorable elevation, the temperature rise exhibits different characteristics in different LHP operation modes, i.e., positively correlated with heat load in gravity driven mode and negatively in capillaritygravity co-driven mode, and the transition heat load is 60 W. For an LHP that has already contained a certain amount of NCG, functioning at favorable elevation could eliminate the adverse effects of NCG on operating temperature and heat transfer performance to some extent. Furthermore, it is found that the presence of NCG and adverse elevation appears to inhibit the backflow during startup and improve startup stability. These results might have reference significance for the design and installation of the LHP for terrestrial applications.

In order to push forward the commercial applications of loop heat pipe (LHP) especially in an environment where people are present, it is of great importance to explore alternative working fluids to substitute the commonly used anhydrous ammonia. In this work, an acetone-charged LHP with a nickel wick is developed and experimentally studied, mainly focusing on its startup and heat transport capability. Based on the experimental results and theoretical analysis, some important conclusions have been drawn, as summarized below: 1) The acetone-charged LHP with 2 mm inner diameter pipeline can successfully realize the startup, and reach a heat transport capability of 60W×0.5m; 2) When the inner diameter of the pipeline is increased from 2 to 4 mm, the LHP can start up with a much smaller heat load, i.e., 5 W, achieving a much lower steady-state operating temperature; 3) When the inner diameter of the pipeline is increased from 2 to 4 mm, the heat transport capability of the acetonecharged LHP can be increased from 60 to 100 W. 4) Adverse elevation affects greatly the heat transport capability of the acetone-charged LHP. With the adverse elevation increasing from 0 to 0.2 m, the heat transport capability is decreased from 100 to 60 W. The physical mechanisms responsible for the experimental results mentioned above have been analyzed and discussed. This work contributes to a better understanding on the operating performance and characteristics of the acetone-charged LHP, providing good design guidance and reference for its future applications.