Thermal performance of nanofluid charged heat pipe with phase change material for electronics cooling

Abstract

The paper reports the thermal performance of a nanofluid (MCNT/water) charged heat pipe with phase change material (PCM) as energy storage material (ESM) for electronic cooling. The adiabatic section of heat pipe is covered by the PCM stored in a container made of acrylic material. Here, paraffin is used as PCM. PCM can absorb and release thermal energy depending upon the fluctuations in the heating load. Tests are conducted to obtain the temperature distributions in PCM during charge/discharge processes. Present study utilizes two different ESM (water and paraffin), different fan speeds and heating powers in the PCM cooling module. The cooling module with heat pipe and paraffin as ESM found to save higher fan power consumption compared to the cooling module that utilities only a heat pipe. Copyright © 2015 by ASME.