Thermal radiators with embedded pulsating heat pipes: Infra-red thermography and simulations

Abstract

Abstract With the aim of exploring potential applications of Pulsating Heat Pipes (PHP), for space/terrestrial sectors, experimental study of embedded PHP thermal radiators, having two different effective Biot numbers respectively, and subjected to conjugate heat transfer conditions on their surface, i.e., natural convection and radiation, has been carried out under different thermo-mechanical boundary conditions. High resolution infrared camera is used to obtain spatial temperature profiles of the radiators. To complement the experimental study, detailed 3D computational heat transfer simulation has also been undertaken. By embedding PHP structures, it was possible to make the net thermal resistance of the mild steel radiator plate equivalent to the aluminum radiator plate, in spite of the large difference in their respective thermal conductivities ( k Al ∼ 4 k MS ). The study reveals that embedded PHP structures can be beneficial only under certain boundary conditions. The degree of isothermalization achieved in these structures strongly depends on its effective Biot number. The relative advantage of embedded PHP is appreciably higher if the thermal conductivity of the radiator plate material itself is low. The study indicates that the effective thermal conductivity of embedded PHP structure is of the order of 400 W/mK to 2300 W/mK, depending on the operating conditions.