An Experimental Study on the Performance of a Loop Heat Pipe

Modern electronics require better thermal management technologies to ensure long lifetime stability and reliable working. Aiming to evaluate the feasibility for a loop heat pipe being used for the heat dissipation of electronics, a stainless-steel/water loop heat pipe is design and an experimental system to study its heat transfer performance is set up. Experimental results show that at optimal heat load and with the loop heat pipe being aligned perpendicularly to the horizontal plane, its thermal resistance is lowered to be ∼0.27 K/W. The loop heat pipe also shows good startup characteristics and can steadily work as well. All these indicate that the loop heat pipe has the potential to be a good solution for cooling of modern electronics.