Mechanical Engineering:

Title:           Fabrication of a Two-turn Closed Loop and Fundamental Experiments on Pulsating Heat Transfer in a Vertical Mode
Authors:     Yasushi Koito, Masamichi Sato, Soichiro Kubo, Toshio Tomimura
Abstract:     A pulsating heat pipe is a self-operative two-phase heat transfer device where oscillating flow of a working fluid is employed to transfer the heat from an evaporator to a condenser section. As one of the attempts to develop a polymer-based pulsating heat pipe, a two-turn closed loop was fabricated on a polycarbonate board and fundamental experiments were conducted on the pulsating heat transfer. In the experiment, the pulsating heat pipe was placed vertically and water was used as the working fluid. The heat was applied from a heater to the bottom of the heat pipe while the top of the heat pipe was water-cooled using a cooling jacket. Because the polycarbonate board is clear, the fluid flow inside the loop was observed, and the temperature distribution of the heat pipe was measured by thermocouples. The experiments were conducted by changing the heat input from the heater and the amount of the working fluid. For comparison, the heat transfer characteristics were also obtained for the case where the working fluid was not charged inside the heat pipe. From the experimental results, the pulsating heat transfer inside the heat pipe and its effectiveness were confirmed. Moreover, a thermal circuit model was made and the effective thermal conductivity of the heat pipe was evaluated. The effective thermal conductivity was 2165 W/(m?K) in maximum in the present experimental range.

Keywords:   Heat Transfer, Pulsating Heat Pipe, Polymer Heat Pipe, Oscillating Flow, Thermal Management
Pages:        170-173

Download Full Paper