The Effect of Working Fluid Charge on the Performance of a Heat Pipe for Medium-temperature Solar Thermal Storage System

중온 태양열 축열조용 히트파이프의 작동액체 충전량이 열성능에 미치는 영향

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the thermal performance of a medium-temperature heat pipe against the charge amount of working fluid. The container and the wick of the heat pipe were made of stainless steel and the working fluid was Dowtherm-A for medium-temperature applications around $250^{\circ}C$. The diameter and length of the heat pipe were 25.4 mm and 1 m, respectively. The maximum thermal load was 1 kW and the working fluid charge ratio varied from 372% to 420%. The results showed that the thermal resistance ranged from 0.12 to $250^{\circ}C/W$ and the effective thermal conductance ranged from 7,703 to $8,898 W/m{\cdot}K$. Dry-out occurred for the heat pipe with 372% fill-charge at the heat load of 950 W, while the other heat pipes with higher charge amount did not encounter dry-out up to 1060 W.