Cooling pitch cabinets in wind turbines using a pulsating heat pipe: A case study

Abstract

As the electric capacity of wind turbine increases, heat dissipation in pitch cabinets becomes challenging owing to the limited space and rotating conditions. To cool down the pitch cabinet more effectively and allow heat dissipation, we designed and implemented a pulsating heat pipe (PHP) in this study. We designed PHP parameters and conducted performance tests to compare the cooling performance of the fabricated PHP with that of an air-based cooling system in a 1.5 MW wind turbine. The results demonstrated steady PHP operation under rotating conditions (17.3 rpm). At a heat load of 1000 W, the evaporator outlet temperature was only 76.1 °C. However, increasing the ambient temperature adversely affected PHP operation, resulting in higher temperature and thermal resistance. The heat-pipe-based cooling system lowered the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) temperature by about 20.4 °C in relation to the air-based cooling system, while being suitable under varied conditions. Additionally, the system could successfully operate when the heat load of IGBT was 2350 W, corresponding to a 7 MW electric capacity of the wind turbine. Reducing the manufacturing cost of the heat pipe would further enhance the applicability of this system for pitch cabinet IGBT cooling, such as decreasing payback period.

Keywords

• Pitch cabinet
• Pulsating heat pipe
• Performance comparison
• Wind turbine