Heat Transfer Performance Investigation Of A Rotating Heat Pipe And Its Application Exploration In Anti-icing Of A Nose Cone

A rotating heat pipe is a two-phase heat transfer device in which heat is transferred via evaporating and condensing the working fluid inside the pipe,and the fluid is driven by the centrifugal force imposed by the rotation of the pipe.Rotating heat pipes are good choices for thermal management of rotary systems due to its satisfactory heat transfer performance.At present,many theoretical and experimental investigations on the heat transfer characteristics of typical rotating heat pipes have been studied.Recently,a novel aero-engine nose cone anti-icing concept based on a rotating heat pipe has been proposed and it has great application potentials for its unique advantages such as excellent performance,self-maintaining,and requiring no extra energy consumption.The special axially rotating heat pipe is designed for the special requirement of structure and heat transfer enhancement of the aero-engine nose cone.Currently,the heat transfer characteristics of the special axially rotating heat pipe haven’t been studied thoroughly.In addition,the technology of aero-engine nose cone anti-icing based on the rotating heat pipe has not been validated by experiments,which may prohibit the wide engineering applications of this technique.In this paper,the heat transfer characteristics of the special rotating heat pipe applied on aero-engine nose cone anti-icing are investigated by the experimental study to discuss the influence factors on the heat transfer performance and the application potential of anti-icing in rotating heat pipe.Based on the experimental research,the principle prototype of cone anti-icing using the rotating heat pipe is established to validate the feasibility of its anti-icing,that provides the basis for engineering applications of the new anti-icing technology.The main work of this paper is as follows: firstly,the special rotating heat pipe is designed and developed,including the design of the working fluid,the shell material and structure size.Then,a set of experimental apparatus is found to explore the effect of heat transfer rate and rotational speed on the heat transfer performance of the rotating heat pipe.In addition,the principle prototype of cone anti-icing using the rotating heat pipe is built and the bench test is developed.At the same time,the anti-icing potential of the principle prototype is analyzed.Lastly,the ice wind tunnel tests are conducted to confirm the anti-icing performance of the principle prototype.The results show that: the effective thermal conductivity of the rotating heat pipe varies from 1800 W/(m﹒K)to 4800 W/(m﹒K)under different working conditions.It is found that the thermal resistance of the rotating heat pipe is reduced with the increase of the heat transfer rate and rotational speed.And the thermal resistance of the evaporator is dominant and it is significantly reduced with the increase of the rotational speed due to the enhanced natural convection heat transfer in the liquid film.The satisfactory heat transfer performance of the principle prototype of cone anti-icing using the rotating heat pipe is observed and the result of the icing wind tunnel experiments helps to make the conclusion that the principle prototype is feasible to prevent the cone from icing under specific icing conditions.In this thesis,the impact of parameters on the heat transfer performance of the special axially rotating heat pipe is examined.And the principle prototype of cone anti-icing using rotating heat pipe is established.The anti-icing performance of the principle prototype is confirmed,which provides guidance for its applications.