Heat Pipes

[Sinbaad]

Hi,

I am looking into heat pipe technology for transferring heat from a flare tower to a water reservoir.

I have very limited knowledge on heat pipes and I am wondering whether heat can be transferred when the orientation of the heat pipe is vertical and also when the heat source is present at an elevation ('heat in' higher than 'heat out'). Does 'heat out' point has to be always at a higher elevation than 'heat in ' point?

Please have a look at the attached file, it might explain my problem better.

Thanks

 

[MintJulep]

The typical heat pipe relies on boiling and condensation of a working fluid to move the heat.

So no, they don't work in the hot-high, cold-low orientation.

 

[IRstuff]

The main advantage a heatpipe has is the ability to passively circulate the cooling fluid. You could do the same yourself with an active pump. You'll need to evaluate whether your reservoir can actually take in the cumulative heat flow from your stack, and whether there will be any detrimental effects to the surrounding environs from that heat buildup.

TTFN

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[rmw]

I am not ironclad sure of this, but I think that heat pipes have a finite length limitation per unit of diameter. So most applications where I have used heat pipes the hot/cold interface was fairly close coupled across a wall, bulkhead, barrier or whatever.

rmw

 

[Compositepro]

For your application you will have to use a liquid cooling flow loop. The only difference in a heat pipe is it uses gravity rather than a pump. This is not possible in your case.

 

[fegenbush]

Many of the small design heat pipes for use in laptop computers do not rely on gravity for the liquid fluid return to the hot side. They use a capillary action to move the fluid. Still, rmw is correct that the distances are usually short.

 

[coolbydesign]

Static heat pumps work as heat DIODES, IE pump in one direction heat in bottom heat out top.

However, dynamic systems can use refrigerant pumps.
There are also glycol run around systems that may do the trick.

There are static self pumping arrangements that can move heat down, a very simple one is described google bubble action pumps to see a video of a down pumping thermal pump.