Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26

www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro

Heat pipes with binary mixtures and inverse Marangoni effects for
microgravity applications
Raffaele Savinoa,∗ , Nicola di Francescantonioa , Raimondo Fortezzab , Yoshiyuki Abec
a Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Sezione Spazio Luigi G. Napolitano, Universita’ di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy
b MARS Center, Napoli, Italy
c AIST—National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan

Available online 6 March 2007

Abstract
Numerical and experimental investigations have been carried out to understand the role of Marangoni effects in heat pipes
with aqueous solutions of long-chain alcohols, proposed to replace common pure liquids used in conventional heat pipes.
Laboratory measurements of surface tensions have been carried out for a number of binary solutions at different temperatures and
concentrations, to identify the most promising two-component mixtures with a nonlinear dependence of the surface tension with
temperature. Fundamental studies on Marangoni flows in binary mixtures, for different experimental configurations of interest,
show the potential advantages of these new working fluids.
A number of tests have been performed with grooved heat pipes, filled with aqueous solutions with the appropriate alcohol
concentrations. The results show improved performances of these heat pipes, when compared to conventional commercial water
heat pipes.
© 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction different sides of the spacecraft due to solar radiation or

Capillary-based devices are important for several ap-
plications. Capillary flows in micro-pipes can substitute
electromagnetic pumps in cooling loops and radiators.
Pumps are subject to failures; they are heavy and re-
quire electrical power to work. Capillary flow is natural
and does not need any power to be activated. Fluid-
dependent pipe geometry (for capillary flow) or tem-
perature difference between the two ends of the pipe
(thermocapillary flow) is the only requirement to en-
sure the flow of the fluid inside sealed pipes. Very often
in space applications, temperature difference exists in
∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +39 81 5932044.
E-mail address: rasavino@unina.it (R. Savino).
0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2007.01.002
internal dissipation of electronic devices and surfaces
oriented toward the deep space. It implies that capil-
lary motion could be intrinsically driven by existing
conditions without the use of specific devices power
consuming.
The second class of application is represented by
evaporation-based heat transfer devices (e.g. heat pipes)
that can be successfully applied to control the temper-
ature of spacecrafts components, satellites, electronic
devices, propulsion, energy recovery systems and other
instruments. After the pioneering publication by Grover
and Cotter [1] research on heat pipes spread worldwide
as they offer many advantages because of their low-
weight penalty, zero maintenance, and reliability [2–5].
By using latent heat of vaporization of the fluid to
transfer heat efficiently at a nearly constant temperature,
 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
one can transfer several hundred times the amount of
heat energy compared to solid copper conductive device
for a given temperature difference.
It is recognized that one of the most critical per-
formance limitations of these passive thermal devices
is the pumping capability (i.e. providing enough liq-
uid return to the evaporator to ensure continuous flow)
under microgravity conditions. Although heat pipe per-
formances and operations are strongly dependent on the
shape, working fluid, and wick structure, the surface
tension and wetting angle of the fluid play an extremely
important role in determining the amount of heat that
can be transferred by a given heat pipe.
In normal gravity conditions, for a grooved heat pipe,
the liquid remains in the condenser due to a stratification
effect. In this case, the upper grooves are not sufficiently
fed and heating on the upper side of the evaporator is
not efficient.
In gravity-assisted devices heat added to the bottom
region vaporizes the working fluid. Because the vapor
in the evaporator region is at a higher temperature and
hence at a higher pressure the vapor rises and flows
to the cold condenser where it releases the latent heat
of vaporization (buoyancy forces assist this process).
Gravitational forces then cause the condensate film to
flow back down along the heat pipe wall to the evapora-
tor where it can again be vaporized. Although the inner
surface of a thermosyphon may occasionally be lined
with grooves or with a porous structure to promote re-
turn of the condensate to the evaporator thermosyphons
principally rely upon the local gravitational acceleration
for the return of the liquid from the evaporator to the
condenser.
On the contrary, heat pipes utilize the capillary
wicking structure to promote the liquid flow from the
condenser to the evaporator and as a result they can
be used in a horizontal orientation, in microgravity
environments, or even for applications where the capil-
lary structure is able to “pump” the liquid against grav-
ity from the evaporator to the condenser. To improve
the heat transfer, one would like to identify additional
mechanisms other than capillary and gravitational able
to pump the liquid phase from the cold to the hot side
of the pipe.
2. Role of surface tension in heat pipes
For binary mixtures the surface tension is a func-
tion of the temperature and of the concentration. In
this case, two additional forces can be identified at the
film–vapor interface: thermal Marangoni; concentration
Marangoni. Both these effects can oppose or favor the
film motion towards the hot end.
17
The influence of surface tension-driven flows unbal-
ance in heat transfer devices has received attention in
the literature [6–12]. In general, for all the pure work-
ing fluids used in conventional heat pipes, the surface
tension is a decreasing function of the temperature.
Therefore, surface motions due to a surface tempera-
ture gradient are directed toward the cold regions of
the surface, which may be unfavorable for the return
of the liquid to the evaporator. Eninger and Marcus
[6] proposed the Marangoni effect as the primary
mechanism responsible for the observed degradation in
axially grooved heat pipes with non-condensible gases.
The main speculation was that the temperature-induced
surface tension gradient in the condenser region could
drive a recirculatory flow with consequent pressure drop
that negatively affects the capillary pressure available
to pump the condensate return at the evaporator. The
authors proposed a very simple idealized model, based
on the assumption of one-dimensional flow and pure
liquid that proved to correctly predict the heat transfer
reduction observed during experimental measurements.
Although the basic aspects of the Marangoni effect
are clear, its influence in axially grooved heat pipes
still needs for a more realistic mathematical model
and corresponding experimental research. Preliminary
microgravity experiments were performed in a drop
tower in Japan [7], using a water–ethanol solution as
working fluid in place of distilled water. The results
pointed out that the condensed liquid in the condenser
section is turned back more to the heating section
when the ethanol concentration is relatively low. These
results could be explained by the Marangoni effect
induced by concentration gradients. Experiments with
binary mixtures as working fluids have been also con-
sidered by several authors to improve thermo-syphon
operations. For a summary of the mixture boiling
work done prior to 1990, refer to the chapter “En-
hanced Boiling of Mixtures” in the book by Thome [8]
where the results for boiling of various water–alcohol
mixtures are reported. Some experimental results for
contact angles for methanol–water mixtures are also
provided there. Mc Gillis et al. [9] published results
of experimental research on boiling and condensing
water–alcohols binary mixtures in thermo-syphons at
sub-atmospheric pressures.
Pratt and Hallinan [10] investigated the role of sur-
face tension gradients in heat transfer devices. They
performed a very preliminary study in a simple config-
uration consisting in a meniscus laterally heated in a
cylindrical capillary, showing that surface tension driven
flows can enhance the heat transfer effectiveness of de-
vices that rely on evaporative phase change. Pratt and
18 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
Kihm [11] investigated a binary mixture of pentane and
decane and demonstrated that the addition of about 1.5%
decane significantly enhanced the heat transport com-
pared to pure pentane. This procedure also increased
the stability of the interfacial film producing a more
steady heat transfer performance. The increased effi-
ciency could be explained by the concentration gra-
dients associated with the distillation in binary fluid
mixtures that counteract the thermocapillary stresses
arising from the liquid-vapor interfacial temperature
gradient.
Zhang and Chao [12] performed a theoretical and
experimental investigation to show that boiling heat
transfer can be enhanced in binary mixtures, taking ad-
vantage from both surface concentration and tempera-
ture gradients. They presented a model predicting the
bubble detachment diameter, the nucleation boiling heat
transfer coefficient and the critical heat flux taking into
account the thermal Marangoni effect. However, solutal
Marangoni effect was not included in their analysis.
The present authors have recently proposed to use
heat pipes with dilute aqueous solutions of higher
carbon (number of carbons4) that exhibit a surface
tension increases with the temperature in suitable tem-
perature [13–15]. In dilute compositions alcohol is the
more volatile component and the Marangoni flow due
to the concentration gradient, coupled with the thermo-
capillary flow is considered to induce rather strong
liquid inflow from the cold to the hot region. One of
the most promising applications is, therefore, the use
of these working fluids in wickless heat pipes under
reduced gravity conditions. In this work, experimental
and theoretical studies have been carried out to select
suitable two-component working fluids as best candi-
dates to improve heat pipe transfer capabilities, due
to Marangoni effects (caused by concentration and/or
temperature differences).
Research activities have been carried out including:
(a) Measurements of surface tensions for a number
of binary solutions at different temperatures and
Evaporator Adiabatic
q
∂σ
q Evaporation
∂x
Hot
MARANGONI EFFECT
wick
structure
Fig. 1. Schematics of the basic idea for the enhancement of heat pipes performances by Marangoni.
concentrations. Identification of the most promising
two-component mixture.
(b) Fundamental studies on Marangoni flows in binary
mixtures for different experimental configurations
of interest (non-isothermal liquid films in closed
cuvettes). The results show potential advantages of
a number of working fluids.
(c) Characterization of operation and performances of
heat pipes under normal gravity conditions in prepa-
ration of microgravity experiments
3. Two component mixtures and inverse
Marangoni flow
As indicated in Fig. 1, the liquid mass flow rate be-
tween the condenser and the evaporator can be strongly
enhanced in microgravity if a surface tension gradient
can be induced on the liquid film surface and if the max-
imum value of  takes place in correspondence of the
evaporator. Marangoni effect will then drive the liquid
towards the evaporator increasing the pumping effect
and therefore the liquid mass flow rate inside the heat
pipe. This is an additional effect that helps the basic heat
pipe liquid flow due to the capillary action toward the
evaporator. The substances that have been examined are
water mixtures with small additions of long chain alco-
hols. The surface tension derivative (j/jx)z=0 along
x (the heat pipe axis) can be expressed in terms of the
temperature and concentration derivatives (T , c ) of
the surface tension ():
j jT jc
= T + c , (1)
jx jx jx
where c is the concentration of the solute dissolved in
water.
To appreciate the driving action of the surface tension
unbalance one may write at the liquid surface the bal-
ance between shear stress and surface tension gradient:
jV j
 = , (2)
jz jx
Vacuum
Condensati o Vacuum
Cold
+
q Liquid
 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
where  is the liquid viscosity, from which an order of
magnitude of the velocity may be evaluated:
 
 T c
V
T + c , (3)
 L L The measurements have been performed using the
 being the (average) film thickness, L the channel (heat
pipe) length; T = Te − Tc > 0 (and c = ce − cc ) is
the difference between temperature (and concentration)
at the evaporator and at the condenser.
The proposed new working liquid should be charac-
terized by T > 0.
The value of c c should also be greater than zero
(to be concurrent with the thermal Marangoni effect).
In this case we expect to observe motions going from
a cold region to a hot region for temperatures higher
than that of the minimum of the equilibrium surface
tension.
In addition, any imposed temperature difference
creates a surface concentration gradient if evaporation
occurs at the hot region and condensation in the cold
one.
4. Surface tension measurements
Laboratory measurements have been performed with
a pendant drop apparatus to evaluate the values of
T and c for a number of long-chain alcohol solu-
tions, i.e. water/butanol, water/pentanol, water/exanol,
water/heptanol, water/octanol.
According to previous works [16], for these alco-
hol solutions, in some ranges of concentrations, the
surface tension as a function of the temperature goes
through a minimum and there is a range of temperature
above which T (T , c) > 0. Typically, at a fixed temper-
ature, the surface tension is a decreasing function of the
Fig. 2. Tensiometer (left) and corresponding drop sample image (right).
19
concentration, i.e. c (T , c) < 0. Therefore, it is expected
to observe surface flows directed from the cold region
to the hot side, for temperatures higher than that of the
minimum of the surface tension.
Dataphysics OCA 15 tensiometer (Fig. 2), based on the
pendant drop method (see e.g. [17]). The experimen-
tal apparatus includes an experimental cell, an optical
system for the illumination and the visualization of the
drop shape and a data acquisition system. Using an elec-
tronic injection system, a pendant drop is formed, whose
contour is analyzed to infer the surface tension using a
suitable software. The whole process of analysis of the
drop shape consists of four main steps: (1) the image
of the pendant drop is captured and digitalized using a
computer with a frame grabber; (2) the drop contour is
extracted to evaluate the radius of curvature at the apex
necessary for the calculation of the surface tension; (3)
smoothing of the extracted contour is carried out using
polynomial regression; (4) the experimental drop shape
is compared with theoretical results obtained solving the
Bashforth and Adams equation [18] by a fourth order
Runge–Kutta method.
A thermocouple was used to control the temperature
with an accuracy of 0.1–0.2 ◦ C.
The surface tension measurements are summarized in
Fig. 3. For all the investigated alcohol solutions, when
the alcohol concentration is very low, the surface ten-
sion decreases when the temperature increases; increas-
ing the alcohol content, it is possible to find suitable
concentrations such that a positive surface tension gra-
dient with the temperature is found when the tempera-
ture exceeds a certain value. Typically, the temperature
corresponding to the minimum of the surface tension is
an increasing function of the number of Carbon atoms.
20 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
Fig. 3. Surface tensions of alcohol solutions as a function of the
temperature.
5. Fundamental studies on wickless heat pipes
Preliminary experiments have been carried out us-
ing horizontal glass cuvettes partially filled with a layer
of water or with alcohol solutions, to study the liquid
50 ◦ C compared with a T
90 ◦ C of the
behavior under a prescribed temperature difference at
the cell sides. The surface temperature distribution has
been detected with an infrared thermocamera. A CCD
camera has been utilized to observe the motion of par-
ticle tracers at the layer interface. Experimentally, the
average surface velocities in the binary mixtures with
thickness of few millimetres are of the order of 1 cm/s
in a horizontal cuvette of length 4 cm, in presence of
T
20 ◦ C, while for pure water the velocities are in
the order of 1 mm/s at the same conditions. According to
Eq. (3), these findings witness the presence of a strong
Marangoni effects in the favourable directions.
It is, however, difficult to appreciate the sign of c
(i.e. if at the film surface the concentration of alcohol
in correspondence of the evaporator is less than that
corresponding to the condenser); some of the experi-
mental tests and preliminary theoretical models suggest
that the alcohol is the more volatile component and that
c < 0 so that also c c > 0 and the thermal and solu-
tal Marangoni flows are concurrent.
The substances experimentally investigated in the cu-
vette have been also utilized to fill enter vacuum glass
pipes with inner diameter of 10 mm, wall thickness of
1 mm and length of 165 mm, to show their behavior in
comparison with pure water.
In particular, one pipe was filled with bi-distilled
water and the other one with a binary solution with
proper concentration. A copper wire was wrapped
around the outer surface of each tube for a length of
3.5 cm, and connected to a power supply in order to
establish a temperature gradient along the pipe. The
systems were investigated in both the horizontal and
vertical configurations without additional cooling units
(the only mechanism for heat transfer at the cold sides
of the pipes was radiation and natural convection).
The diagnostic system includes an infrared ther-
mocamera FLIR SC-3000 and thermocouples with
diameter of 0.3 mm, to measure the temperature at the
evaporator sections.
Fig. 4a shows that, in the vertical configuration (grav-
ity assisted), when the power supplied to the heater is
5 W, the heat pipes filled with water and with the binary
mixture exhibit the same heat transfer performances.
This result can be explained because in this config-
uration the gravity force prevails over surface tension
forces and represents the main “driving” action. On
the contrary, in the horizontal configuration, the perfor-
mances of the pipe filled with the binary mixture are
better, as qualitatively shown in Fig. 4b.
The heat pipe filled with a binary mixture shows a
temperature difference between the two opposite sides
of about T
heat pipe filled with pure water. The equivalent thermal
conductivity of the first heat pipe is almost twice than
the heat pipe containing pure water. In order to better
investigate the Marangoni effect, the temperature distri-
bution along the outer surfaces of glass heat pipes was
detected looking at the horizontal systems from below
and from above, as shown in Fig. 5.
In the heat pipe filled with pure water, the isotherms
are distorted towards the condenser in the top view;
and towards the evaporator, in the bottom view. On the
contrary, in the binary solution, the distortions are in
the same directions condenser in both cases.
A numerical model has been prepared that takes into
account the complex interplay between liquid, solid,
vapor in presence of heating, phase changes, viscous
flow, capillary effects and Marangoni flows. A mass flow
rate (2.2 × 10−6 kg/s) was imposed at the evaporator
and condenser sections, based on the measured power
supplied to the heater (5 W) and on the latent heat of
vaporization of water (540 cal/g). According to the ex-
periments the temperatures imposed at the end walls are
90 ◦ C in the heater zone (3.5 cm length) and 30 ◦ C at the
condenser. Heat conduction across the tube thickness
has been taken into account in the numerical model.
Finally, a surface tension driven flow at liquid–vapor
interface has been imposed according to the measured
values of surface tension.
The computed temperature distributions on the
outer surface of the pipes are in qualitative agree-
ment with the experimental profiles obtained with the
thermocamera.
 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26 21

Fig. 4. Thermographic images of pipes filled with water and binary mixture: (a) vertical configuration; (b) horizontal configuration.

Fig. 5. Thermographic images of pipes filled with water and binary mixture in the horizontal configuration. (a) Top view; (b) bottom view.

Fig. 6. Numerical simulation of the piple filled with water in the horizontal configuration.

In the case of the pipe filled with water (Fig. 6), By continuity, the liquid returns toward the
the velocity vectors in the mid-section perpendicular to evaporator in the bottom regime below the in-
liquid–vapor interface show that in the pipe filled with terface, and this explains why the isotherms are
pure water, the vapor flow entrains a fluid flow at the deformed toward the evaporator zone in the top
interface directed from the evaporator to the condenser. view.
22 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
Fig. 7. Numerical simulation of the pipe filled with a binary mixture in the horizontal configuration.
For the case of the pipe filled with the binary mixture
(Fig. 7), the computations show that there is a strong
liquid flow directed from the cold side towards the hot
region (i.e. an inverse Marangoni flow). On the other
hand, the liquid returns to the cold region along the side
walls, causing an evident distortion of the isotherms as
shown by the thermographic images and by the numer-
ical results.
In both cases, the vapor flow from the hot side to the
cold side explains why the isotherms on the top wall of
the pipes are directed from the evaporator toward the
condenser zone.
6. Heat pipes performances
A number of heat transfer performances tests have
been carried out to optimize the composition of the
working fluid using a set of commercial heat pipes, filled
with different aqueous solutions.
The experiments have been performed with axi-
ally grooved copper heat pipes, with 25 cm length
and diameters of 4 and 8 mm. The heat pipes were
filled with 0.41 cc (or 1.9 cc) of pure water and with
the same amount of water solutions of long chain
alcohols.
Fig. 8 shows an artistic layout and the pictures
of the different sub-components of the experimental
setup.
The evaporator is a copper block of 30 mm. Cartridge
heaters are introduced inside holes and are heated by a
power supply. The heat pipes condensers are embedded,
for a length of 6 cm, into thin black painted aluminium
panels (8 cm × 6 cm). The heat pipes are mounted in
the horizontal configuration and the adiabatic region,
of about 16 cm, is properly insulated by a low thermal
conductivity material. The only heat transfer mecha-
nisms, from the condenser to the ambient air, are radi-
ation and natural convection.
The temperature distributions along the heat pipes
and on the surface of the aluminium panels are detected
by thin thermocouples (0.25 mm diameter) and by the
infrared thermocamera. A Keithley data logger is used
for the acquisition of the temperature signals, as well
as of the current and voltage.
During each test a prescribed electrical power is sup-
plied to the cartridge heaters; when temperature steady-
state conditions are established, the electrical power is
increased to the next step and this procedure is repeated
until dry-out conditions are achieved, with a sudden in-
crease of the temperature difference between evaporator
and condenser.
The experiments pointed out that heat pipes filled
with alcohol solutions exhibit better heat transfer
performances than the ones filled with pure water.
Thermographic images of the experiments, for the ver-
tical (gravity assisted) and horizontal configurations,
and electrical power of 4 W, are shown in Fig. 9. In the
horizontal configuration (Fig. 9a), for the same electri-
cal power, the temperature of the heat pipe filled with
the water/alcohol solution is lower at the evaporator
section and higher at the condenser section.
The behavior of the two heat pipes, in the grav-
ity assisted configuration, are almost the same
(Fig. 9b).
On the contrary, as shown in Fig. 9a, the thermal re-
sistance of the heat pipe filled with water, defined by the
ratio between the temperature difference at the evapo-
rator and condenser sections and the supplied power, is
relatively large compared to the case of the heat pipe
filled with the binary mixture. The behavior found in
 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26 23

Fig. 8. Experimental setup. (a) Artistic layout; (b) evaporator block; (c) evaporator block with cartridge heatres; (d) heat pipe-evaporator
assembly; and (e) top view of two assembled heat pipes with black painted radiator.

Fig. 9. Thermographic images of the heat pipes assemblies for Q = 4 W. (a) Horizontal configuration; (b) vertical configuration. Maximum
temperature: 52 ◦ C, minimum temperature 25 ◦ C.
24 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26

Fig. 10. Time history of the temperatures during heat pipes tests with the horizontal (a) and vertical (b) configurations.

Figs. 9a, b is qualitatively the same already discussed
in the case of glass tubes filled with the same liquids
(Figs. 4a, b).
The time histories of the temperatures at the evapo-
rator and condenser sections are shown in Fig. 10. For
relatively low electrical power (1 or 2 W), the heat pipe
filled with pure water exhibit a relatively low thermal re-
sistance. However, increasing the power, dry-out occurs
in the water heat pipe at smaller electrical powers (4 W)
compared to the heat pipe filled with the water/alcohol
solution (8–10 W).
All these results confirm that heat pipes filled with
alcohols solutions with unusual Marangoni effect ex-
hibit better performances when compared to conven-
tional commercial water heat pipes.
7. Microgravity experimentation
The experiments proposed for the ESA parabolic
flight campaign onboard the Airbus A-300 include tests
on heat pipes filled with different fluids and tests on in-
novative flexible/inflatable/deployable radiators based
 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
Fig. 11. Setup of radiator panel.
Fig. 12. Vacuum chamber.
on the same fluids. Concerning the first part of the
experimentation a number of commercial or wickless
heat pipes will be filled with aqueous solutions with
the appropriate alcohol concentrations and tested with
a simple apparatus in order to compare their perfor-
mances with the corresponding performances under
normal gravity conditions.
In addition, heat pipe radiator panels, fabricated by
the vacuum hot-press procedure, will be subjected to
a series of thermal performance tests in the reduced
gravity condition.
The panels material is a Polyamide multi-layer lam-
inate sheet. It is manufactured with many tubes filled
with suitable liquids (i.e. different alcohol aqueous), see
e.g. Fig. 11. The experiments will be carried out to study
the distribution of the working fluid in the polyamide
channels in the panel and the temperature distribution
of the panel under different heating conditions.
A transparent vacuum chamber (Fig. 12) will be used
to reduce heat transfer to the surrounding ambient.
Since the surface temperature distribution will be de-
tected by an infrared thermocamera, windows with a
25
Fig. 13. Sketch of the heat pipes setup.
suitable material transparent in the infrared band of the
instrument (BaF2) will be inserted in the wall of the
chamber (see Fig. 12). Heating will be provided by re-
sistant heaters with power of hundreds of Watts, to en-
sure a quick heating process compatible with the short
time available during the parabola.
As a cooling device a water jacket in combination
with Peltier element will be used for the same reason.
The diagnostic system will include a CCD camera, an
IR camera, thermocouples, power measurements units
and a data acquisition system with a PC.
Ground experiments will be carried out to investigate
the liquid behavior and the temperature distributions for
horizontal and vertical orientation (thermosiphon).
Observation of the working fluid behavior in the
polyamide channel in the panel will be carried out in
combination with measurements of the temperature
distribution of the panel and fluid temperature using
both the IR camera and sheet-thermocouples.
The working fluid behavior will be related to the
“negative” temperature dependence of the surface ten-
sion in a low-temperature region.
Concerning the tests on heat pipes filled with dif-
ferent fluids, each day the behavior of heat pipes,
properly filled with different liquid mixtures, will be in-
vestigated. An artistic layout of the experimental setup
with four heat pipes is shown in Fig. 13, where it is pos-
sible to see the adiabatic region of the heat pipes, the
black condensers (cooled by circulating water) and the
metal blocks with the wires connected to the cartridge
heaters. The experimental procedure will be optimized
in such a way that different electrical powers will be
provided to the heat pipes heaters before the parabolas,
to measure the evolution of the axial temperature dis-
tributions along the pipes by fine thermocouples during
the microgravity period. The main objective will be to
compare 1-g and micro-g performances of the selected
heat pipes and the improvements obtained with binary
mixtures.
26 R. Savino et al. / Acta Astronautica 61 (2007) 16 – 26
8. Conclusions
The experimental and numerical results presented in
this paper show that suitable two-component working
fluids can be identified to improve heat pipe transfer
performances. The inverse Marangoni effect, caused by
a surface tension increasing with temperature, provides
an additional mechanism for liquid return from the con-
denser to the evaporator, other than forces like capil-
lary and gravitational. The numerical results show that
this particular surface tension behavior, induced by the
evaporation at liquid–vapor interface, is associated to
an increase of the heat transfer. The experimental re-
sults confirm that heat pipes filled with long-chain alco-
hol solutions at suitable concentrations perform better
than heat pipes filled with pure water. This was found
both in wickless glass pipes and in conventional copper
grooved heat pipes.
Future experiments will be carried during parabolic
flights and on board an Italian satellite as a microgravity
platform to assess the performances of the newly pro-
posed heat pipes and of innovative wickless heat pipes
in microgravity conditions.
References
[1] G.M. Grover, T.P. Cotter, G.F. Erickson, Structures of very high
thermal conductance, Journal of Applied Physics 35 (6) (1964)
1990–1991.
[2] T.P. Cotter, Principles and prospects for micro heat pipes, in:
Proceedings of the Fifth International Heat Pipes Conference,
Tsukuba, Japan, 1984, pp. 328–335.
[3] A. Faghri, Heat pipe Science and Technology, Taylor and
Francis, Washington, 1995.
[4] P.D. Dunn, D.A. Reay, Heat Pipes, Pergamon Press, Oxford,
1994.
[5] G.P. Peterson, An Introduction to Heat Pipes. Modeling Testing
and Applications, Wiley, New York, 1994.
[6] J.E. Eninger, D.B. Marcus, The Marangoni effect and capacity
degradation in axially grooved heat pipes, Third International
Heat Pipe Conference, Palo Alto, CA, May 22–24, 1978, AIAA
Technical PaperA78-35576, pp. 14–34.
[7] M. Kuramae, M. Suzuki, Two components heat pipes utilizing
the Marangoni effect, Chemical Engineering of Japan 26 (1993)
230–231.
[8] J.R. Thome, Enhanced Boiling Heat Transfer, Hemisphere
Publishing Co., New York, 1990.
[9] Mc Gillis, et al., Western research laboratory Technical Note
TN-23, 1992.
[10] D.M. Pratt, K.P. Hallinan, Thermocapillary effects on the
wetting characteristics of a heated curved meniscus, Journal of
Thermophysics and Heat Transfer 11 (1997) 519–525.
[11] D.M. Pratt, K.D. Kihm, Binary fluid mixture and thermo-
capillary effects on the wetting characteristics of a heated curved
meniscus, Journal of Heat Transfer 125 (1997) 867–874.
[12] N. Zhang, D. Chao, Models for enhanced boiling heat transfer
by unusual Marangoni effects under microgravity conditions,
International Communications in Heat Mass Transfer 20 (8)
(1999) 1081–1090.
[13] R. Savino, R. Monti, Heat pipes for space applications, Space
Technology 25 (1) (2005).
[14] Y. Abe, About self-rewetting fluids, Possibility as a new working
fluid, Thermal Science and Engineering 8 (4) (2003).
[15] Y. Abe, K. Tanaka, Heat transfer devices with self rewetting
fluids, in: Proceedings of IMECE 2004, Aaheim, November
2004.
[16] R. Vochten, G. Petre’, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
42 (1973) 320.
[17] E.Y. Arashiro, N.R. Demarquette, Use of the Pendant drop
method to measure interfacial tension between molten polymers,
Materials Research 2 (1) (1999) 23–32.
[18] S. Bashforth, J.C. Addams, An attempt to test the theory of
capillary action, Cambridge University Press and Deighten, Bell
and Co, London, 1882.