Heat transfer and two-phase flow of a metal foam enhanced horizontal loop thermosyphon for high power solar thermal applications

Huicong Yao, Jie Zhang, Yuehao Li, Hao Liu, Yinfeng Wang, Guiqiang Li and Yuezhao Zhu

Energy, 2023, vol. 283, issue C

Abstract: Loop thermosyphon, as an efficient heat transfer device, is considered as a potential receiver for high power solar thermal applications. A horizontal loop thermosyphon with metal foam (MF-HLTS) was proposed for further improve the thermal stability when operated in horizontal position, and experimentally investigated compared to that without metal foam (S-HLTS) in this work. The experimental results show that the filling ratio of 57.5% produced the lowest total thermal resistance of 0.056–0.093 K/W, with a maximum increase of 836% in terms of thermal performance at steady-state. Meanwhile, the start-up performance of MF-HLTS with the progressive start-up is superior to that of the S-HLTS and EF-HLTS with the overshoot start-up in terms of start-up stability and time under various filling ratios and heat fluxes. Additionally, the bidirection-oscillation flow is easy to occur inside S-HLTS, resulting in temperature and pressure fluctuations with amplitudes reaching 12.53 kPa and 2.67 °C. For MF-HLTS, the internal flow pattern exhibits stable unidirectional flow, with a maximum improvement of 78.5 times. All results demonstrated that the horizontal loop thermosyphon with the auxiliary of a metal foam in evaporator and straight section can greatly improve thermal performance and flow stability, which is promising in the energy utilization applications.

Keywords: Horizontal loop thermosyphon; Metal foam; Heat transfer; Two-phase flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:283:y:2023:i:c:s0360544223025380

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2023.129144

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