Experimental analysis of a capillary pumped loop for terrestrial applications with several evaporators in parallel

Nicolas Blet (1) , Yves Bertin (1) , Vincent Ayel (1) , Cyril Romestant (1) , Vincent Platel (2)

1 PPrime [Poitiers] - Institut Pprime [UPR 3346]
2 LATEP - Laboratoire de Génie Thermique Énergétique et Procédés (EA1932)

In the context of high-dissipation electronics cooling for ground transportation, a new design of two-phase loop has been improved in recent years: the capillary pumped loop for terrestrial application (CPLTA). This hybrid system, between the two standard capillary pumped loop (CPL) and loop heat pipe (LHP), has been widely investigated with a single evaporator, and so a single dissipative area, to know its mean operating principles and thermohydraulic couplings between the components. To aim to extend its scope of applications, a new experimental CPLTA with three evaporators in parallel is studied in this paper with methanol as working fluid. Even if the dynamics of the loop in multi-evaporators mode appears on the whole similar to that with a single operating evaporator, additional couplings are highlighted between the several evaporators. A decoupling between vapor generation flow rate and pressure drop in each evaporator is especially revealed. The impact of this phenomenon on the conductance at evaporator is analyzed.

Mots clés: Capillary pumped loop; Gravity field; Power electronics cooling; Thermohydraulic coupling

Domaines: Thermique [physics.class-ph]

Nicolas Blet, Yves Bertin, Vincent Ayel, Cyril Romestant, Vincent Platel. Experimental analysis of a capillary pumped loop for terrestrial applications with several evaporators in parallel. Applied Thermal Engineering, 2016, 93, pp.1304 - 1312. ⟨10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2015.10.096⟩. ⟨hal-01744845⟩