Boiling heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids in a flat heat pipe evaporator with micro-grooved heating surface

An experimental study was performed to understand the nucleate boiling heat transfer of water–CuO nanoparticles suspension (nanofluids) at different operating pressures and different nanoparticle mass concentrations. The experimental apparatus is a miniature flat heat pipe (MFHP) with micro-grooved heat transfer surface of its evaporator. The experimental results indicate that the operating pressure has great influence on the nucleate boiling characteristics in the MFHP evaporator. The heat transfer coefficient and the critical heat flux (CHF) of nanofluids increase greatly with decreasing pressure as compared with those of water. The heat transfer coefficient and the CHF of nanofluids can increase about 25% and 50%, respectively, at atmospheric pressure whereas about 100% and 150%, respectively, at the pressure of 7.4 kPa. Nanoparticle mass concentration also has significant influence on the boiling heat transfer and the CHF of nanofluids. The heat transfer coefficient and the CHF increase slowly with the increase of the nanoparticle mass concentration at low concentration conditions. However, when the nanoparticle mass concentration is over 1.0 wt%, the CHF enhancement is close to a constant number and the heat transfer coefficient deteriorates. There exists an optimum mass concentration for nanofluids which corresponds to the maximum heat transfer enhancement and this optimum mass concentration is 1.0 wt% at all test pressures. The experiment confirmed that the boiling heat transfer characteristics of the MFHP evaporator can evidently be strengthened by using water/CuO nanofluids.