Systems and methods for thermal management using separable heat pipes and methods of manufacture thereof. Various embodiments provide a porous insert that can be used to join or connect heat pipes. Further embodiments provide thermal management systems that are modular, expandable, reparable, by allowing for joining of evaporators, condensers, and adiabatic sections via porous inserts. Various embodiments allow for two-phase thermal management systems, where liquid and gaseous phases can be transported simultaneously. Certain embodiments incorporate heat generating components with embedded evaporators and/or condensers. Many embodiments are additively manufactured, including via 3D printing.

A method for testing a two-phase cooling device is provided. The cooling device has a housing surrounding a cavity and a cooling medium within the cavity. The method includes controlling a temperature of ambient air of the cooling device such that the cooling medium within the cavity transitions from its liquid state to its solid state and/or from its solid state to its liquid state, while monitoring a first temperature of the cooling device, determining whether the monitored first temperature fulfills a predetermined criterion, and determining that the cooling device is overfilled with the cooling medium if the predetermined criterion is fulfilled.

A liquid metal high-temperature oscillating heat pipe and a testing system are provided. The testing system contains the high-temperature oscillating heat pipe, a high-temperature heating furnace, a cooling liquid block, a high-pressure pump, a constant temperature liquid bath, a mass flowmeter, a filter, a cooling liquid valve, and a measurement and control connected to the aforementioned devices. The constant temperature liquid bath, the high-pressure pump, the filter, the cooling liquid valve, a liquid filling port tee-junction, the cooling liquid block, a liquid outlet tee-junction, and the mass flowmeter are connected in sequence and the mass flowmeter is connected to the constant temperature liquid bath. The front side of the cooling liquid block is provided with a channel connected to a condenser of the high-temperature oscillating heat pipe. The adiabatic section of the high-temperature oscillating heat pipe being connected to the high-temperature heating furnace.

The invention relates to a method for detecting deficiencies in a cooling tower (2) of a thermal facility (1) in operation in a given environment, comprising the implementation of the steps of: (a) measurement, by a plurality of sensors (13), of a set of values of physical parameters relating to the cooling tower (2), at least one of which being an endogenous parameter specific to the operation of the cooling tower (2) and at least one exogenous parameter specific to said environment; (b) calculation, by data processing means (11), of at least one expected optimum value of said endogenous parameter as a function of said values of the physical parameters and a model; (c) determination, by the data processing means (11), of at least one potentially deficient function of the cooling tower (2) as a function of the disparity between the measured value and the expected optimum value of said endogenous parameter and/or the variation of said disparity; (d) testing, by the data processing means (11), of each function of the cooling tower (2) determined as being potentially deficient; and (e) triggering of an alarm, by the data processing means (11), if at least one function of the cooling tower (2) is evaluated as being deficient in the test.

A heat-transfer member (1) is used in a cooling system in which an alcohol serves as a coolant. The heat-transfer member (1) has: a heat-receiving surface (11) configured such that it can receive heat from a heat-generating body; and a heat-dissipating surface (12) configured such that it can dissipate, to the coolant, the heat received at the heat-receiving surface (11). The heat-dissipating surface (12) has a plurality of pores (121) whose average pore diameter is 5 nm or more and 1,000 nm or less. A cooling system can be configured by causing the coolant to contact the heat-dissipating surface (12) of the heat-transfer member (1).

Methods, devices, and systems for an inferential sensor for internal heat exchanger parameters are described herein. One device includes a memory, and a processor configured to execute executable instructions stored in the memory to receive a number of measured process variables of a heat exchanger, including a number of measured inlet process variables and a number of measured outlet process variables, predict, using a dynamic differential model including the number of measured inlet process variables, internal parameters of the heat exchanger and a number of outlet process variables of the heat exchanger, compare the number of measured outlet process variables with the number of predicted outlet process variables, and update, based on the comparison, the internal parameters of the heat exchanger.