• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.1533-1540
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• 2001

A high-temperature sodium stainless steel heat pipe was fabricated and its performance has been investigated. The working fluid was sodium and it was sealed inside a straight tube container made of stainless steel. The amount of sodium occupied approximately 20% of the total volume of the heat pipe and its weight was 65.7gram. The length of a stainless steel container is 1002mm and its outside diameter is 25.4mm. Performance tests were carried out in a room air condition under a free convective environment and the measured temperatures are presented. The start-up behavior of the heat pipe from a frozen state was investigated for various heat input values between 600W and 1205W. In steady state, axial temperature distributions of a heat pipe were measured and its heat transfer rates were estimated in the range of vapor temperature from 50$0^{\circ}C$ to 63$0^{\circ}C$. It is found that there are small temperature differences in the vapor core along the axial direction of a sodium heat pipe for the high operating temperatures. But for the range of low operating temperatures there are large temperature drops along the vapor core region of a sodium heat pipe, because a small vapor pressure drop makes a large temperature drop. The transition temperature was reached more rapidly in the cases of high heat input rate for the sodium heat pipe.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.31-37
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• 2006

In this study, the ability for the function of double pipe inserted liquid pipe with small diameter in the gas pipe with large diameter for the circulating of liquid of high temperature and high pressure and low temperature and low pressure at the same time is presented. And in this double pipe, liquid pipe of high temperature and pressure is used to connect condenser and expansion valve and gas pipe of low temperature is used to connect evaporator and compressor. Also, when liquid refrigerant of high temperature and gas refrigerant of low temperature is circulated by reversed flow in the double pipe. The contribution of liquid gas heat exchange pipe is studied by comparison of the effect of heat transfer by temperature difference when liquid pipe and gas pipe is installed separately.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.668-671
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• 2007

A numerical study was conducted on a simplified model of a high-temperature solar receiver which incorporates liquid-metal heat pipe. The objective of this paper is to compare the isothermal characteristics of the heat pipe receiver with the conventional receiver utilizing convection of molten salt as heat carrier. The solar receiver was assumed to be subject to a concentration ratio between 50 and 1,000 to supply high-temperature heat to a stirling engine for electric power generation. For simplicity of the analysis, a cylindrical geometry was assumed and typical dimensions were used based on available literature. The heat pipe had a shape of double-walled cavity and the working fluid was a sodium. The analysis was performed assuming that the radiation heat flux on the inner walls of the receiver was uniform, since the focus of this study was laid on the comparison of the conventional type and heat pipe type receiver. The results showed that the heat pipe type exhibited superior performance when the operating temperature becomes higher. In addition, to explore the advantage of the heat pipe receiver, the channel shape and dimensions should be adjusted to increase the heat transfer area between the wall and the heat trnasfer medium.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.64-69
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• 2007

This study is to develop heat recovery system using high performance heat pipe heat exchanger for Middle-high temperature range industrial exhaust gas. The naphthalene is used as working fluid of heat pipe in this study. Single naphthalene heat pipe could transport over 2,000 watts with $0.05^{\circ}C/W$. The heat pipe heat exchanger consist of 50 naphthalene heat pipes recovered 62 kW when over $400^{\circ}C$ gas exhausted and the maximum recovered heat rate was 173 kW in this study.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.68-78
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• 1997

A numerical study on the transient vapor flow and heat transfer is performed to investigate the ideal switching operation of heat source in a high temperature heat pipe. The cylindrical 2-dimensional compressible laminar vapor flow is assumed for the vapor space and the conjugate heat transfer for the heat pipe wall, wick and vapor space is calculated. The different boundary conditions such as constant heat flux, convective or radiative boundary at the outer wall are used respectively to compare the influence of boundary conditions on the transient operation. The transient temperature profile and the internal flow of the entire pipe for the switching operation are described as a result. The results show that the transient time is not significantly affected by the boundary conditions at the outer wall in present study. During the transition, two independent flows are observed temporarily on the right side and left side of the heat pipe. It is also found that the trend of temperature variation in the vapor region is different from the variation in the wick and wall region.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.220-225
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• 2008

Cylindrical stainless-steel/sodium heat pipe for a high-temperature solar thermal application was manufactured and tested for transient and steady-state operations. Two layers of stainless-steel screen mesh wick was inserted as a capillary structure. The outer diameter of the heat pipe was 12.7 mm and the total length was 250 mm. The effective heat transport length, the thermal load, and the operating temperature were varied as thermal transport conditions of the heat pipe. The thermal load was supplied by an electric furnace up to 1kW and the cooling was performed by forced convection of air The effective thermal conductivity and the thermal resistance were investigated as a function of heat flux, heat transport length, and vapor temperature. Typical range of the total effective thermal conductivity was as low as 43,500 W/m K for heat flux of 176.4 kW/$m^2$ and of operating temperature of 1000 K.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.12
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• pp.3879-3891
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• 2021

A heat pipe residual heat removal system is proposed to be incorporated into the reactor driven subcritical (RDS) facility, which has been proposed by MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory for testing and demonstrating the Fluoride-salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor (FHR). It aims to reduce the risk of the system operation after the shutdown of the facility. One of the main components of the system is an air-cooled heat pipe heat exchanger. The alkali-metal high-temperature heat pipe was designed to meet the operation temperature and residual heat removal requirement of the facility. The heat pipe model developed in the previous work was adopted to simulate the designed heat pipe and assess the heat transport capability. 3D numerical simulation of the subcritical facility active zone was performed by the commercial CFD software STAR CCM + to investigate the operation characteristics of this proposed system. The thermal resistance network of the heat pipe was built and incorporated into the CFD model. The nominal condition, partial loss of air flow accident and partial heat pipe failure accident were simulated and analyzed. The results show that the residual heat removal system can provide sufficient cooling of the subcritical facility with a remarkable safety margin. The heat pipe can work under the recommended operation temperature range and the heat flux is below all thermal limits. The facility peak temperature is also lower than the safety limits.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.162-168
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• 2009

A horizontal tube furnace with a wide uniform-temperature zone was developed using isothermal characteristics of a heat pipe. The heat pipe heating system consists of a concentric annular shaped stainless-steel container, sodium as a working fluid and a screen mesh wick structure. The performance test of the heat pipe revealed that temperature changes along seven consecutive positions of the heat pipe outer wall were less than${\pm}0.1^{\circ}C$, thereby ensuring the high isothermal property. The isothermal property of the heat pipe-adapted tube fumace was investigated and compared to a conventional non-heat pipe type tube furnace. The temperature distribution measurement showed that the uniform temperature zone, in which temperature change is less than${\pm}$1$^{\circ}$C, of the heat pipe employed tube furnace system was about three times longer compared to the conventional tube furnace system.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1044-1051
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• 2005

The isothermal characteristics of a rectangular parallelepiped sodium heat pipe were inves­tigated for high-temperature applications. The heat pipes was made of stainless steel of which the dimension was $140\;m\;(L)\;{\times}\;95m\;(W)\;{\times}\;46 m\;(H)$ and the thickness of the container was 5 mm. Both inner surfaces of evaporator and condenser were covered with screen meshes to help spread the liquid state working fluid. To provide additional path for the working fluid, a lattice structure covered with screen mesh wick was inserted in the heat pipe. The bottom surface of the heat pipe was heated by an electric heater and the top surface was cooled by circulating coolant. The concern in this study was to enhance the temperature uniformity at the bottom surface of the heat pipe while an uneven heat source up to 900 W was in contact. The temperature distribution over the bottom surface was monitored at more than twenty six locations. It was found that the operating performance of the sodium heat pipe was critically affected by the inner wall temperature of the condenser region where the working fluid may be changed to a solid phase unless the temperature was higher than its melting point. The maximum temperature difference across the bottom surface was observed to be $114^{\circ}C$ for 850 W thermal load and $100^{\circ}C$ coolant inlet temperature. The effects of fill charge ratio, coolant inlet temperature and operating temperature on thermal performance of heat pipe were analyzed and discussed.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.165-168
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• 2008

A numerical analysis was conducted to predict the heat transfer characteristics of a solar receiver which is subject to very high heat fluxes and temperatures for solar thermal applications. The concentration ratio of the solar receiver ranges 1000 and the concentrated heat is required to be transported to a certain distance for specific applications. This study deals with a solar receiver according to internal geometry variation incorporating high-temperature heat pipe. The isothermal characteristics in the receiver section is of major concern. The diameter of the solar thermal receiver was 120 mm and the length was 400 mm and the angle of receiver end wall set $90^{\circ},\;60^{\circ},\;45^{\circ},\;30^{\circ}$. And the diameter of the heat pipe was 12.7 mm, 48 axial channels of the same dimensions were attached to the outer wall of the receiver with even spacing in the circumferential direction. The channels are changed to high-temperature sodium heat pipes. Commercial softwares were employed to deal with the radiative heat transfer inside the receiver cavity and the convection heat transfer along the channels. The numerical results are compared and analyzed from the view point of high-temperature solar receiver.