Parametric study of rotating heat pipe performance: A review

Abstract Heat pipes as most efficient heat exchanger devices are used in many thermal engineering applications–to transfer heat from a source to the storage or from the storage to a sink. Rotating heat pipe (RHP) is one important kind of the heat pipes, but the study on RHP is relatively little due to its relatively narrow application field. In the RHP system, centrifugal force resulting from heat pipe rotation causes the liquid flowing along the direction of centrifugal force and thence causes especial two-phase flow and heat transfer characteristic. Over the past two decades, many investigations have been carried out to study various two-phase flow and heat transfer performances in the RHP system, however, the comprehensive presentation and review are still rare. This paper presents a retailed review of experimental research and numerical studies of RHP over the past two decades. The paper categorizes different kinds of RHPs, the working fluids, experimental technologies and numerical simulated methods, discusses the effects of various factors on the performance of RHP, introducing the current research situation, in order to provide useful reference for the researchers in the heat pipes field.