Experimental investigation of microencapsulated phase change material water slurry performance in an oscillating heat pipe
Abstract
An experimental investigation was performed to determine the heat transfer performance of an oscillating heat pipe (OHP) with a micro-encapsulated phase change material (MPCM) slurry working fluid. In this investigation, MPCMs with diameters ranging from 3.8 [mu]m to 29.4 [mu]m was added in the working fluid to determine MPCMs' effect on the heat transport capability. It is expected that when the MPCMs are in the evaporator, the MPCMs change phase from solid to liquid to absorb more thermal energy. When the MPCMs move to the condenser section, MPCMs change phase from liquid to solid, the MPCMs can release more thermal energy. In this way, it can help increase the heat transport capability in an OHP. The effects of the encapsulation ratio, encapsulation efficiency, geometric dimensions, density, and latent heat of investigated MPCMs on the thermal performance in OHPs were experimentally conducted. Experimental results show that the MPCMs added in the working fluid can enhance the heat transport capability in an OHP and it is found that the best performance of the OHP occurred at a MPCM weight concentration of 3 percent in the slurry, which can achieve an improvement of 15.5 percent.
Degree
M.S.