Investigation and simulation of nanoparticle application in satellite equipment cooling; Simultaneous use of nanofluid and a heat pipe with three evaporators

This paper aims to study the effect of nanofluid on the thermal performance of a heat pipe with three evaporators for satellite equipment cooling. Nanoparicls of Cuo and TiO2 were considerd for modeling. The mathematical expressions of temperature distribution of heat pipe wall, which are analytically derived by separation of variables technique, consist of infinite series that were solved by Matlab software. The accuracy of simulated results was validated against available experimental data and a good agreement was observed between them. The results show that the use of nanofluid instead of water leads to a more temperature reduction of satellite equipment as well as a more temperature uniformity throughout the wall of heat pipe. Moreover, increasing of nanoparticle concentration and reducing nanoparticle diameter have a remarkable effect on the heat transfer enhancement, thermal resistance reduction, and thus thermal performance of heat pipe. Under the best condition, growing CuO nanoparticle with diameter of 10nm up to 8% increases heat transfer coefficient up to 75%. The use of nanofluid reduced the required heat transfer surface and the weight of heat pipe in best cause (8% CuO nanoparticle with diameter 10nm) decreases down to 35%. The outcomes of this paper indicate that metal oxides nanofluids can have a great potential in satellite equipment cooling.