Transient Response of an Oscillating Heat Pipe by a Pulsed Heating in a High Magnetic Field Environment

Abstract

An experimental investigation of a compact, triplelayer oscillating heat pipe (OHP) has been conducted to determine the fasttransient heating effect on the heat transport capability of an OHP in a high magnetic field environment. The OHP has dimensions of 1.3 cm thick, 22.9 cm long, and 7.6 cm wide embedded with twoindependent closedloops forming three layers of channels. The OHP was directly clamped to a railgun system in a medium caliber launcher (MCL) and subjected to high current electric discharges occurring over several microseconds. The experimental results show that the OHP is capable of significantly reducing peak temperatures during a pulsed heating event over pure copper, even in the presence of relatively high magnetic fields.