Analysis of High Speed Radially Rotating High- Tempera Ture Heat Pipes

Internal convective cooling is a method by which components, such as gas turbine blades, are protected from damage caused by elevated temperatures. Heat pipes are structures that transport and dissipate large quantities of pressurized thermal energy. The thermal energy is transported from a heat source to a thermal sink via evaporative cooling. A radially rotating high temperature heat pipe . employs centrifugal force to return or drive the working saturated-vapor mixture from the condenser section to the evaporator section. A rotating heat rig is being developed at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in order to gain a better understanding of the interaction between thermal conductivity, rotational speed, operating temperatures and thermal loads. As a part of its development, this study will focus on identifying key factors that maximize the first critical speeds on rotating heat pipe assemblies having non-uniform temperature distributions. It was found that in order to avoid reaching the first critical speed the use of double bearings should be implemented. Since the temperature of the heat pipe will be non-uniform, this will have a minimal effect on the critical speed of the rotating rig. The first phase of the construction of the rotating rig will be stable and will provide valuable test data without reaching any critical speeds.