Experimental investigation on performance of a rotating closed loop pulsating heat pipe

Abstract

Pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) are interesting heat transfer devices. Their simple, high maintaining, and cheap arrangement has made PHPs very efficient compared to conventional heat pipes. Rotating closed loop PHP (RCLPHP) is a novel kind of them, in which the thermodynamic principles of PHP are combined with rotation. In this paper, effect of rotational speed on thermal performance of a RCLPHP is investigated experimentally. The research was carried out by changing input power (from 25W to 100W, with 15W steps) and filling ratio (25%, 50%, and 75%) for different rotational speeds (from 50rpm to 800rpm with an increment of 125rpm). The results presented that at a fixed filling ratio, thermal resistance of RCLPHP decreased with increasing heat input applied to evaporator. Above a certain range of heat input, probability of partial dry-out of evaporator existed, which led into thermal performance deterioration of RCLPHP. Moreover, thermal resistance of RCLPHP decreased with increasing rotational speed and probability of partial dry-out in the evaporating section reached to its least amount.