Volume 11: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Changing the World: Part III

A new idea of the flow model applied to a two-phase loop thermosyphon Hanwen Cao, Tao Ding, Zhiguang He, Zhen Li

Abstract

The two-phase loop thermosyphon (TPLT) is a high-efficiency heat transfer device which has been applied in many fields in recent years. The conventional flow models of a TPLT do not consider the particularity of the flow characteristics and cannot properly describe the refrigerant distribution under different working conditions. This paper tries to propose a new idea of the flow model which takes the variation of flow characteristics with the change of working conditions into consideration. A numerical simulation was conducted on a TPLT based on the proposed flow model. The change in heat transfer rate and the variation of refrigerant column height (driving force) in downcomer with increasing refrigerant charge were calculated to analyze the effect of filling ratio on the performance. The study in this paper could provide a reference for the design in practical application.

Keywords two-phase loop thermosyphon, numerical simulation, flow model, operation stage