Characterizing pressure fluctuation into single-loop oscillating heat pipe

Abstract

The pressure characteristics inside single loop oscillating heat pipe (OHP) having 4.5 mm inner diameter copper tube with the loop height of 440 mm were addressed. Distilled water was used as working fluid inside the OHP with different filling ratios of 40%, 60% and 80% of total inside volume. Experimental results show that the thermal characteristics are significantly inter-related with pressure fluctuations as well as pressure frequency. And the pressure frequency also depends upon the evaporator temperature that is maintained in the range of 60–96 °C. Piezoresistive absolute pressure sensor (Model-Kistler 4045A5) was used to take data. The investigation shows that the filling ratio of 60% gives the highest inside pressure magnitude at maximum number of pressure frequency at any of set evaporator temperature and the lowest heat flow resistance is achieved at 60% filling ratio.