ISSN Online: 2688-7231
ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-478-6
Proceedings of the 24th National and 2nd International ISHMT-ASTFE Heat and Mass Transfer Conference (IHMTC-2017)
PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF LOOP HEAT PIPE USING MODIFIED FIGURE OF MERIT WITH CORRECTION FACTOR
Abstract
Figure of merit (FOM) of a two-phase heat transport
device such as heat pipe or loop heat pipe (LHP) is a measure of its performance characteristics. In this paper, we propose a method of qualitatively assessing the performance of an LHP by balancing the saturation pressure difference across the LHP capillary wick with the pressure drops in vapour line and condenser. Validation of the proposed method with results of experiments on a mini LHP with working fluids such as acetone, methanol, n-pentane and ethanol shows that the proposed method predicts the operating characteristics of an
LHP more accurately and is superior to the other FOM
available in the literature for performance assessment.