Experimental investigation of the thermal performance of a novel concentric condenser heat pipe array

A novel concentric condenser heat pipe array is developed and expected to be utilized in integrated waste heat recovery equipment with higher heat transfer efficiency at lower temperature heat sources. The investigation of the overall thermal performance of the concentric condenser heat pipe array was experimentally conducted in this work. The parameters considered in this study are operating temperature, input power, inclination angle, and the length of evaporator section. The results showed that the maximum heat transport (Qmax) increased with the augment of the operating temperature, the length of evaporator section, and condensation area, while decreased with increasing the inclination angle. The present investigation also discovered that, when the inclination angle was 60° and the length of evaporator section was 270 mm, the novel waste heat recovery equipment (concentric thermosyphon heat pipe array) delivered a better heat transfer performance.