The role of hybrid nanofluids in improving the thermal characteristics of screen mesh cylindrical heat pipes

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to study the thermal performance of meshed wick heat pipe by varying the working fluid and heat input. In this work four screen mesh wicked heat pipes were fabricated and tested. All the heat pipes were tested for heat input from 50W to 250W each with an increment of 50W in each step. The heat input range selected in this study is commonly encountered in most of the electronic application devices. The thermal resistance of all the heat pipes charged with different working fluids such as DI water, Al2O3/DI water nanofluid of volume concentration 0.1 % and hybrid nanofluid volume concentration 0.1%( with two different combinations of (Al2O3 50%- CuO 50%)/DI water and (Al2O3 25%- CuO 75%)/DI water)was determined. The maximum percentage reduction was found to be 58.87% for the hybrid nanofluid of (Al2O3 25%- CuO 75%)/DI water compared to base fluid. An important observation from the study is that, use of hybrid nanofluid can raise the operating range of the heat pipe beyond 250W which makes hybrid nanofluid as a potential substitute for the conventional working fluid.