Three-Year Performance Test of a Dual Compensation Chamber Loop Heat Pipe

This paper conducted a three-year performance test of a stainless steel-ammonia dual compensation chamber loop heat pipe (DCCLHP) under three typical evaporator orientation (horizontal, favorable tilt and adverse tilt). Test results shown that the DCCLHP could suffer from performance degradation, such as operating temperature increase and operation failure, as the service time increased. This kind of performance degradation was particularly pronounced at small heat loads. Besides, the performance degradation of DCCLHP seems to be most significant at horizontal orientation, and relatively not serious at the favorable tilt. The reason that resulted in the performance degradation was also analyzed in this paper.