Experimental study on heat transfer performance enhancement of pulsating heat pipes induced by surfactants

Abstract

Pulsating heat pipe (PHP) is considered as a promising technique to address the thermal dissipation issues in micro-electronic devices, but its heat transfer performance needs to be further enhanced urgently. In this study, the PHP comprehensive performance experimental system was established. Then, the influence of surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) aqueous solution on the heat transfer performance of PHP was experimentally investigated and the visualization of PHP with surfactant was also accomplished. Additionally, based on Marangoni effect and surface tension, a comprehensive analysis was conducted on the impact mechanism of surfactants on PHP. The experimental results indicated that the oscillatory disturbance of the liquid slug inside the PHP is enhanced by the addition of SDS, and the resulting pressure imbalance and temperature difference enhance the directional flow of the working fluid. Meanwhile, under the operating conditions of 30 W working thermal power and the solution concentration of 0.001 wt%, the thermal resistance of PHP was reduced by 30.7 % compared with that of deionized water (DI water). This indicated that the working fluid with low concentration SDS could increase the area of liquid film and reduce the thermal resistance, which is induced by the surface tension and Marangoni effect due to the uneven distribution of surfactants. However, the thermal resistance of PHP with the SDS concentration of 0.2 wt% is higher than that of DI. This means that high concentration of SDS would deteriorate the startup characteristics and the heat transfer performance of PHP. Therefore, high concentrations of surfactants should be avoided from practical application of PHP.