Experimental investigation on a novel composite heat pipe with phase change materials coated on the adiabatic section

A novel composite heat pipe (CHP) that consists of a conventional heat pipe (HP) with a phase change material (PCM) storage chamber wrapped on the adiabatic section was proposed in this work. The CHP combines the advantages of the high thermal conductivity of HP and the high thermal storage capacity of the PCM. A measurement system was established to analyze the thermal performance with different effect factors of the CHP, including the filling rate of the PCM, heating power and wind speed. Multi-cycle transient thermal controlling performance was also investigated. Results show that the CHP can enhance the absorption-dissipation thermal performance, improve the isothermality, decrease the start-up temperature and greatly reduce the thermal shock in cyclic thermal scenarios. We believe that the CHP can be developed as high-potential heat-transfer medium for reliable thermal management.