Experimental investigation of transient operation of a water heat pipe
- Institute for Space Nuclear Power Studies, Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 (United States)
Transient operation of heat pipes is of interest to many space applications including thermal management and heat rejection radiators. Experiments were performed to investigate the trasient response of a water heat pipe to step changes in input power at different cooling rates. The copper heat pipe has a 393-mm long evaporator, 37-mm long adiabatic section, and 170-mm long condenser and employes a double-layered, 150 mesh copper screen wick. The evaporator section was uniformly heated while the condenser section was convectively cooled. Both the vapor and wall temperatures were measured at ten axial locations along the heat pipe. The time constants of the vapor temperature and the effective power throughput during heat-up and cool-down transients were determined as functions of the electric power input to the evaporator heater and the water flow in the cooling jacket of the condenser section.
- OSTI ID:
- 5524862
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-930103-; CODEN: APCPCS
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States), Vol. 271:1; Conference: 10. symposium on space nuclear power and propulsion, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 10-14 Jan 1993; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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