Performance of Water-Based Loop Heat Pipe at Different Ambient Conditions for Thermal Management in Terrestrial Applications

Loop heat pipe (LHP) is a thermal management device used in different applications like mobile, laptop, air conditioning, space, defense, etc. Water-based LHP was analyzed in present work for the thermal management in terrestrial applications. Modeling of LHP with water as a working fluid was done in MATLAB with two-phase analysis and the effects of different ambient conditions (i.e., 10 °C, 22 °C, and 40 °C) were analyzed on the parameters on steady-state operating temperature (SSOT), condenser outlet temperature (Tco), liquid line outlet temperature (Tlo), two-phase pressure drop across the condenser (i.e., ΔP2ɸ), heat exchanged from the compensation chamber (C.C.), and liquid line to ambient (i.e., Qc.c.-amb, QL.L.-amb) and resistance of LHP. When Tamb was increased from 10 °C to 40 °C, SSOT, Tco, and Tlo increased by 24.4 °C, 11.9 °C, and 13.92 °C, respectively, at 160 W. It was found that the condenser ΔP2ɸ has significant effect on ΔPtotal at higher heat loads. Qc.c.-amb and QL.L.-amb have reduced by 0.36 W and 0.28 W, respectively, when Tamb was increased from 10 °C to 40 °C at 600 W.