An and de Presentation

BY: Animaw Fenta and
Desalew Mihretu
Objective
 Design and numerical modeling of heat pipe for solar
collector.
 Manufacturing and testing of wick and wickless cupper pipes
with flat plate solar collector
Introduction
• A heat transfer devices capable of transferring large quantities
of heat with a minimal temperature drop. Or
• Transmits heat from one location to another over a small
temperature gradient.
• With increasing demand of energy conservation, heat pipe
becomes attractive for varied applications.
Solar water heating application areas
Solar Water heating System
• Using energy from sun light to heat water for a certain
purpose.
• System’s basic components.
- temperature absorber (collector)
- heat pipe
- heat exchanger (condenser) and
- storage tank.
• This project deals on the heat pipe.

Heat Pipes
• Heat pipes are simply a sealed Aluminum or Copper container
whose inner surface is a capillary wicking material.
• They are simple devices with no moving parts that can transfer
large quantities of heat over fairly large distances essentially at
constant temperature with out requiring any power input.
Cont…
• Consists of three distinct regions.
- evaporator (heat addition region)
- condenser (heat rejection region) and
- adiabatic (isothermal region).
Basic Components of Heat Pipes
 The three components are;
- case (container),
- wick structure, and
- working fluid.
 Casing,
- provides containment and structural stability.
- Constructed from good thermal conductor metals.
Commonly, Copper,
Aluminum or
stainless steel
 Wick structure,
- fabricated from - woven fiberglass,
- sintered metal powders, or
- screens
Cont…
- Provides the mechanism by which, the working fluid
is returned from the condenser to evaporator.
- Ensures even distribution of the working fluid over
the evaporator space.
Cont…
 Working fluid
- A fluid that evaporate and condense inside the pipe, which
is the basis for operation of a heat pipe
- Chosen depends on the operation temperature conditions
- Commonly, with boiling temperature [250 , 375] k is
applicable in heat pipes. E.g. lithium, ethanol, water, mercury
Working Principle of heat pipe
Applications of Heat Pipes
 Becoming widely applicable ranging from target cooling in

particle accelerators, to cooling systems for nuclear reactors
 Are applicable in;
- Separation of heat source and heat sink: component cooling
- Temperature flattening: reduce thermal gradients
- Heat flux transportation: in reactor technology
- Temperature control: mundane application
- Energy conservation: heating systems
- Thermal diodes and switches.
Advantages of Heat pipes
• The heat pipe is relatively light in weight since the volume
consists essentially of the vapor
• It requires no power source to accomplish its function
• Absence of gravity does not affect its operation due to the
presence of wick
• Quite small vapor flow rates can produce large heat fluxes.
Heat pipe limitations
• Capillary Limitation :
-Is a depletion of liquid in evaporator wick when the total capillary pressure
across the liquid vapor interface is not greater than or equal to the
summation all pressure drop occurring throughout the liquid vapor paths.
• Viscous limitation;
-Is a dominancy of viscous forces with in the vapor region due to small
pressure difference at low operating temperature.
• Sonic limitation;
- It is the condition at which the declining of evaporator temperature due to
decreasing of condenser temperature following the vapor velocity variation
is cease.
• Entrainment limitation;
- Is picking up of liquid droplets in the vapor flow and cause excess liquid
accumulation in the condenser hence dry out of the evaporator wick.
• Boiling limitation;
- Blocking of the liquid return due to bubbles created during very high
radial heat fluxes as nucleate boiling occur in the wick.
Heat Pipe Design
Cont…
 Assumptions
- the pipe is capillary limited
- vapor pressure losses are negligible
- wick thickness is much smaller than the vapor core radius
- Heat flux density is uniform at the evaporator or condenser.
- Thermal conductivity of wick is proportional to the liquid.
 Material selection
Fluid: distilled water
wick: copper wire screened mesh
container: copper tube
Design Analysis
• Design data
- average normal water temperature is 23 0c.
- working temperature of fluid = 52 0c.
(Experimental data)
- physical properties of water at the two temperatures
- angle of inclination is 150 (geographical location)
- absorbed solar radiation = 652.7w/m2 (calculated)
• Dimensions of the available material used:
- total length of the heat pipe (Lt) = 2m
- Outer diameter of heat pipe.
- Inner diameter of a heat pipe.
- Vapor core diameter.
- Screen wick thickness
- Screen wire diameter.
- Wire screen mesh number
Cont…
• Checking of limitations
- capillary Pg = ρl g (Di cos φ – Lt sin φ)

- sonic Qs, max = Avρoλ.[rvRvTv/2(rv+1)]0.5
- fluid compressibility 20 * Qmax .0.5
Dv  ( )
l  rv RvTv
- entrainment Qe, max = Avλ (ρvσ/2rh,s)0.5
- boiling, Qb, max = 2LeKeTv/ λρvln (ri/rv) [2σ/rn –Pc]
Cont…
• Additionally the design analysis includes:
- the amount of water filled in the pipe
- the insulation to the adiabatic section and condenser
- thermal resistance of the heat pipe
- heat transfer film coefficients in heat exchanger
- the water tanker, and
- efficiency of heat pipe
Efficiency, η = qu*Le /(Ac * I) = 76%
where, qu = useful heat gain per unit length
I = solar radiation
Ac = collector area
Le = evaporator length
Heat Pipe Modeling
• Simplifying assumptions for the numerical simulations
- temperature and the flows are in equilibrium
- radiation due to the low temperature difference is neglected.
- wick structure located next to the cylindrical container
- no vapor in the wicking structure and liquid in the core
Cont…
• The modeling is done using ANSYS soft ware
• Information to be feed in the soft ware
- heat flux per unit length 172W/m
- material properties of the pipe
(density, emissivity, thermal conductivity )
Cont…
Three dimensional model and the meshed element
Cont…
Thermal gradient contour plot of the pipe along the Radial
direction
Heat Pipe Manufacturing
• a) Parts manufacturing
- envelop
- filling tube
- wick
- end cap
Summary of production procedure
• Cutting and straitening of the tube
• Inserting the wick
• First sealing:
• Soldering
• Final sealing:
Cont…
vacuum is formed using the following steps

Cont…
• Distilled water is prepared
• The copper tube is sucked
• vacuum valve made closed
• The vacuum pump attached to the out put of the vacuum control valve
• vacuum pump valve opened and the copper tube is sucked
• The tube is then crushed to its half diameter
• As quickly as the vacuum valve is closed bottle valve then opened and
distilled water flow to the heat pipe until the calculated volume then water
valve is closed securely.
• The heat pipe is crushed , then the vacuum pump is turn off and the
evacuation water filling apparatus is removed
• The extra length of the heat pipe is cut using the hacksaw
CONDUCTED EXPERIMENTS
• Testing and Experimental set up

Cont…
Procedure:
• The support is tilted 15 degrees from horizontal
• The casing is put over the support
• The absorber is then inserted inside the casing
• The absorber is then closed with a glass
• The water reservoir is installed to the heat pipe which passes through the
casing and the absorber
• The water reservoir is then filled with water 30 and 5 liters for the two
system.
• The initial temperature of the water is measured
• At every half an hour interval, required data are recorded
Cost analysis of the prototype
Conclusion
• Running out of energy resources such as petroleum and
coal is the quite issue now on the world. In addition to
this using biomass energy resulted in harsh
deforestation.
• Solar energy is one of the renewable energy resource .
• Environmentally it is beneficial, no harmful byproduct
released to the globe.
• Solar water heating employing heat pipe is one of the
possible solutions to over come this problem.
• When the cost analysis is observed it is advantageous
to use solar energy.
RECOMENDATION
• Before designing the heat pipe the working temperature of the

fluid and the solar radiation should be carefully studied and
should be taken in to consideration as they bring significant
change in the over all performance of the water heater.
• During installation, production and insulating of the
components great care should be taken to maintain the results
of the design.
• Since heat pipe is a new technology as compared to other
types in the area of water heating using solar energy, further
investigations should be under taken on the heat pipe and on
the collector in general to achieve better efficiency.

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BY: Animaw Fenta and

• This project deals on the heat pipe.

 Becoming widely applicable ranging from target cooling in

- capillary Pg = ρl g (Di cos φ – Lt sin φ)

vacuum is formed using the following steps

• Testing and Experimental set up

• Before designing the heat pipe the working temperature of the

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