Design Calculation and Performance Test of the Evaporator-Condenser for Direct Heat Transfer between Heat Pipe and Heat Pump

The combination of a super-long gravity heat pipe and a heat pump system for harvesting deep geothermal heat has the advantages of low cost, high efficiency, and no groundwater contamination. Direct heat exchange between the evaporator of the heat pump system and the condenser of the gravity heat pipe can simplify the heat exchange process and improve the heating efficiency of the system. Therefore, a U-shaped evaporator-condenser was developed, and its heat transfer performance was studied by building an experimental platform combining a heat pump and a heat pipe. Notably, the heat transfer coefficient of the U-shaped evaporator-condenser reached 2 037.92 W/(m²·℃) when the working fluid on the heat pump side passed through the tube. Based on the homogeneous flow model, a one-dimensional steady-state evaporator-condenser heat transfer model was established by integrating the mass, energy, and momentum conservation equations with empirical formulas for condensation outside the tube and boiling heat transfer inside the tube. Using Python, the simulation results were compared with experimental data. Notably, the average deviation of the heat transfer in the evaporator-condenser was 18.91%, confirming the accuracy of the model and providing a theoretical calculation method for designing an efficient evaporator-condenser.