Application of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) To Evaluate the Influence of Container Diameter in Heat Pipe Operation

摘要

A heat pipe is an evaporative-condensation device for transferring heat in which latent heat of vaporization is exploited to transport heat over long distances with a corresponding small temperature gradient. The heat transport is realized by means of evaporating a liquid in the heat inlet region (called the evaporator) and subsequently condensing the vapour in a heat rejection region (called the condenser). The present study is aimed at to optimize the diameter of the heat pipe under the various heat inputs, angle of inclination and the flow rate of coolant in the condenser. The Box Behnken design matrix and response surface methodology were applied in designing the experiments to evaluate the interactive effects of the four most important operating variables to evaluate the diameter of the heat pipe. Three factor and four variables are used to analysis in this work. The heat pipe container diameter is optimized by RSM using the above parameters and its interaction effects to predict the thermal efficiency and the thermal resistance of the heat pipe. Heat pipe performance depends on the heat pipe diameter, angle of inclination, heat input and flow rate. The effect of flow rate is less importance than other three. The proposed model will be useful to predict the thermal efficiency of heat pipe with an error of ±1%. The variation of super heat temperature is almost linear irrespective of heat input, angle of inclination and flow rate of cooling medium. The proposed model is the very useful to predict performances of the heat pipe.