REVISTA DYNA ENERGÍA

Key words:

Energy efficiency, energy sustainability, exergy analysis, heat pipes, waste heat collector, Eficiencia energética, sostenibilidad energética, análisis de exergía, tuberías de calor, colector de calor residual

Article type:

ARTICULO DE INVESTIGACION / RESEARCH ARTICLE

Section:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

ABSTRACT:
This paper presents the energy and exergy analysis of a waste heat collector system (WHCS) applied to a computer. The collector system transfers the waste heat through heat pipes from the components which are waste heat emitters in a computer, mainly the CPU (Central Processing Unit), the video card and the power supply, to a specific surface in order to recover waste thermal energy. The thermodynamic analysis of the components which generate waste heat as CPU, video card and the power supply is presented. The WHCS was designed considering a temperature operating range generated by the emitting components between 51°C – 95°C. The simulation of the WHCS is carried out with water as a sustainable working fluid in heat pipes.
Finally, based on the exergetic and energetic analysis, the potential results are presented. The recovered thermal power might be converted to electrical power to use as the power supply of internal circuits or low power devices, which represents a contribution to energy sustainability.

Keywords: Energy efficiency, energy sustainability, exergy analysis, heat pipes, waste heat collector