Thermal Characteristics of a Three-Dimensional Coil Type Pulsating Heat Pipe at Different Heating Modes

Abstract

The heat transfer performance of a pulsating heat pipe (PHP) configured as a three-dimensional (3D) structure is reported in the present study. The PHP structure resembles an elongated coil and termed “coil type PHP.” Five different heating modes were created by positioning the evaporator at different locations and placing the PHP device in vertical and horizontal orientations. Studies were conducted primarily with de-ionized water as the working fluid. Limited number of experiments were also performed using binary fluids. The filling ratio was varied from 40% to 80%, while the heat input was varied from 20 W to 240 W. The vertical and horizontal orientations show almost 30 and 10 times reduction in the thermal resistance, respectively, compared with bare PHP tubes without the working fluid. This results in an effective thermal conductivity of more than 3000 W/(m K) and 12,000 W/(m K) for horizontal and vertical orientations, respectively. The use of the binary fluid (10 wt% and 20 wt% of ethanol aqueous solution) results in an increase in the maximum heat input at different heating modes. The temperature of the coolant supplied to the condenser section of the PHP was also varied, and the thermal resistance of the system was observed to reduce with an increase in the coolant temperature.