Experimental Investigation on CuO/Water Nanofluid Effect on the Heat Transfer Rate of Heat Pipe Network

In this study, a new configuration of heat pipes as Heat Pipe Network is introduced. Here, the heat pipe network is designed, constructed and then has been under the performance assessment. This heat pipe network consists of 4 vertical heat pipes connected to evaporator collector from bottom and condenser collector from top. In order to investigate the effect of nanofluids on the thermal efficiency and thermal resistance of heat pipes network, copper oxide nanofluids were prepared using two-steps method. Heat pipe network with 50% filling ratio water and copper oxide nanofluid as working fluid was tested under different heat loads. It is found that total resistance of heat pipe network using copper oxide nanofluid with volumetric concentrations of 1%, 3% and 5% mixed with water as working fluid are reduced to 0.95, 0.84 and 0.75, respectively compared with dionized water. Moreover, for 5% volumetric concentration of nano fluid it is resulted that thermal efficiency exceed to 80%.