An experimental study was conducted toward improving the steady-state thermal performance of a loop heat pipe (LHP) under high heat fluxes. An auxiliary loop (or bypass line) was installed between the vapor channel of the evaporator and the liquid res...
An experimental study was conducted toward improving the steady-state thermal performance of a loop heat pipe (LHP) under high heat fluxes. An auxiliary loop (or bypass line) was installed between the vapor channel of the evaporator and the liquid reservoir to control the thermal performance of the LHP. A control valve was installed to the center of the bypass line to enable switching between the normal and bypass line operation modes. The LHP evaporator had a flat structure with vapor passages consisting of inverted trapezoidal grooves. Sintered metal wicks fabricated from stainless steel were used as the capillary structures in this study, and distilled water as the working fluid. The plane of the evaporator and condenser was 50 mm long and 40 mm wide, while the working fluid transport tube was of length 0.5 m. Experiments were performed to investigate the steady-state performance of the LHP with the auxiliary loop under thermal loads of 100–260 W. Typical results showed that the wall temperature was decreased by approximately 45°C, resulting in reduction of the LHP thermal resistance by up to 28.1%.