Study of a Hybrid of Pulsating Heat Pipe and Distributed Jet Array

Abstract

Pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) are effective devices for transferring a large amount of heat. For the existing PHP design, the U-turn geometry makes it difficult to use on small heat spots, which are very common in electronic cooling and many high heat flux applications. Additionally, the pipe flow in PHPs is not an optimum form for convective heat transfer. So far little research has attempted to resolve these issues. In this study, a hybrid design is introduced incorporating the characteristics of the PHP for its passive operation and the distributed jet array for its efficient convection. Based on the proposed structure, test articles are fabricated and experimentally studied. The design is proved successful. The heat transfer performance is evaluated by parametric studies and compared with the closed-loop PHPs. The flow visualization results are analyzed with different operational stages, flow patterns, and dimensionless numbers. The investigation concludes that the proposed design not only provides a new configuration for passive oscillatory heat transfer but also offers enhanced performance and applicability over the existing PHPs.