Numerical study of a novel Single-loop pulsating heat pipe with separating walls within the flow channel

Abstract

• A novel pulsating heat pipe with separating wall is proposed. • The separating wall enhances the heat pipe thermal performance by up to 14%. • The heat pipe performs best at the filling ratio of 70%. • An advanced numerical model for the heat pipe is developed. • Fluid circulation between the two sides of the wall is discovered. Pulsating heat pipe (PHP) has drawn much attention due to its simple structure and high thermal performance. In this study, we proposed a novel PHP with separating walls within the flow channel. This could change the flow pattern of the liquid and vapor plugs, resulting the enhancement of the heat pipe thermal performance. To uncover the effect of the separating wall, we built a 2D numerical model of a single loop pulsating heat pipe to study the heat transfer mechanism of the proposed novel PHP. The effects of the separating wall locations and the PHP filling ratios were investigated at the bottom heating conditions. The results showed that the novel PHP had the best thermal performance at the filling ratio of 70% in our study and the thermal performance could be enhanced by 14% compared to the classical PHP without the separating wall. Besides, the separating wall located at the inner side of the heat pipe channel performed best at the filling ratios of 30% and 50%, whereas the separating wall located at the middle of the flow channel had the highest equivalent thermal conductivity at the filling ratio of 70%.