Thermal Performance and Numerical Simulation of the 1-Pyrene Carboxylic-Acid Functionalized Graphene Nanofluids in a Sintered Wick Heat Pipe

Experimental and numerical modeling of a heat pipe included with a phase change heat transfer was developed to assess the effects of three parameters of nanofluid, heat pipe inclination angles, and input heating power. Distilled water (DW) and 1-pyrene carboxylic-acid (PCA)-functionalized graphene nanofluid (with concentrations of 0.06 wt%) were used as working fluids in the heat pipe. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model was developed for evaluation of the heat transfer and two-phase flow through the steady-state process of the heat pipe. It was found that inclination significantly affects the heat transfer of the heat pipe. Maximum increment of thermal performance in the heat pipe reached 49.4% by using 0.06 wt% of PCA-functionalized graphene as working fluids. The result associated with this comparison indicates that the highest deviation is less than 6%, consequently confirming that the CFD model was successful in reproducing the heat and mass transfer processes in the DW and nanofluids charged heat pipe. The results of CFD simulation have good agreement between predicted temperature profiles and experimental data.