• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.652-658
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• 2015

The Bubble Jet Loop Heat Pipe (BJLHP) is designed to operate in the horizontal orientation. The motion of the bubble generated by boiling working fluid on a heater surface in the evaporating section of the BJLHP helps the working fluid transfer heat to the condensing portion. In this study, we changed the position of the heater in the evaporating section from concentric to eccentric. The concentric heater is located at the center of the tube in the evaporating part, and the eccentric heater is located at the bottom of the inner surface of the same tube. We used R-134a as the working fluid, and the charging ratio was 50%vol. We measured the temperatures of the evaporating and condensing sections by changing the input electric power from 50 W to 200 W, measuring every 50 W. The results of the experiment show that the effective thermal conductivity of BJLHP using an eccentric heater is four times higher than the BJLHP obtained using a concentric heater. Additionally, we conducted a visualization experiment on the evaporating portion of BJLHP to determine why the effective thermal conductivity was higher. The working fluid was water, and we took pictures of the flow visualization for BJLHP. Nucleate boiling with the eccentric heater was more intense and generated more bubbles. Therefore, the eccentric heater was more saturated by the liquefied working fluid.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

A major stress determining the remaining life of the tube in feedwater heater of fossil fuel power plant is hoop stress by the internal pressure. However, thermal stress due to temperature difference across the wall thickness also contributed to reduce the remaining life of the tube. Therefore, thermal loading must be considered even though the contribution of internal pressure loading to the stresses of the tube was known to be much higher than that of the thermal loading. In this study, thermal stress of the tubes in the de-superheating zone was estimated, which was generated due to the temperature difference across the tube thickness. Analytic equations were shown for determining the hoop stress and the radial stress of the tube with uniform thinning and for the temperature across the tube thickness. Accuracy and effectiveness of the analytic equations for the stresses were verified by comparing the results obtained by the analytic equations with those obtained from finite element analysis. Using finite element analysis, the stresses for eccentric thinning were also determined. The effect of heat transfer coefficient on thermal stress was investigated using series of finite element analyses with various values of heat transfer coefficient for both inner and outer surface of the tube. It was shown that the effect of heat transfer coefficient at outer surface was larger than that of heat transfer coefficient at inner surface on the thermal stress of the tube. Also, the hoop stress was larger than the radial stress for both cases of uniformly and eccentrically thinned tubes when the thermal loading was only considered without internal pressure loading.