Mini-channel evaporator/heat pipe assembly for a chip cooling vapor compression refrigeration system

We investigate a novel evaporator design for a small-scale refrigeration system whose function is to assist the existing heat pipe technology currently used in chip cooling of portable computers. A heat transfer model for the evaporator/heat pipe assembly was devised specifically for sizing the evaporator in order to keep the chip surface temperature below a certain value. A prototype was tested with R-600a at saturation temperatures of 45 and 55 °C, mass flow rates between 0.5 and 1.5 kg h−1 and heat transfer rates between 30 and 60 W. The experimental results demonstrated that the average refrigerant-side heat transfer coefficient is more sensitive to a change in the refrigerant mass flux than to changes in the saturation temperature and heat transfer rate. The agreement between the calculated heat transfer coefficient and the data was within ±10% for the conditions evaluated.