Analysis of Frozen Startup of High-Temperature Heat Pipes and Three-DimensionalModeling of Block-Heated Heat Pipes

摘要

The use of high-temperature heat pipes has been proposed for cooling the leadingedges and nose cones of re-entry vehicles, rail guns, and laser mirrors, as well as for the thermal management of future hypersonic vehicle structures. The startup behavior of high temperature heat pipes from the frozen state was investigated both numerically and experimentally for various heat loads and input locations. A high temperature sodium/stainless steel heat pipe with multiple heat sources and sinks was fabricated, processed, and tested. A numerical simulation of the transient heat pipe performance including the vapor region, wick structure and the heat pipe wall is given. Furthermore, experimental and numerical analyses of several operating parameters of a low-temperature copper-water heat pipe under uniform circumferential heating and block heating has been performed. Finally, a numerical analysis of transient heat pipe performance including nonconventional heat pipes with nonuniform heat distributions is presented. Numerical calculations were then made for a leading edge heat pipe with localized high heat fluxes.