ABSTRACT
In this paper the experimental study of the behavior of screen wick and nanofluid to
improve the performance of a circular heat pipe. Pure water and Al2O3-water based
nanofluid are used as working fluids. An experimental setup is designed and
constructed to study the heat pipe performance under different operating conditions.
The effect of filling ratio, volume fraction of nano-particle in the base fluid, screen
mesh as a wick and heat input rate on the thermal resistance is investigated. Total
thermal resistance of the heat pipe for pure water and Al2O3-water based nanofluid is
also predicted. An experimental correlation is obtained to predict the influence of
Prandtl number and dimensionless heat transfer rate, Kq on thermal resistance.
Thermal resistance decreases with increasing Al2O3-water based nanofluid
compared to that of pure water. The experimental data is compared to the available
data from previous work. The range of operating parameter are filling ratio 40% to
100%, nanofluid concentration from 0.0% to 2.0%, and heat rate from 8 to 32 watt.
The agreement is found to be fairly good.