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Effect of bend radius and insulation on adiabatic section on the performance of a single closed loop pulsating heat pipe: experimental study and heat transfer correlation

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Abstract

Pulsating heat pipes are a relatively newer generation of heat pipe which are wickless thus more economical and less fabrication-intensive. These devices are made of a capillary sized tube bent in a serpentine form to result in a closed system. In this study a single closed loop pulsating heat pipe made of 2 mm internal diameter copper tubing is experimentally investigated for two different bend radii. The performance comparison is made for two fluids – methanol and water, for varying heat loads from 10 W to 100 W, with various inclinations from vertical bottom heated mode to horizontal mode, for a constant fill ratio of 60%. The sharper bend, though making the device more compact, is found to reduce the performance. One of the bend geometries is further investigated for the effect of insulation on the adiabatic sections. The insulation is found to certainly widen the heat load range though a distinct performance improvement is not found. The variation of the frequency of pressure pulsations with respect to the fluid, heat load and inclination is also studied. Additionally, one of the geometry is tested with FC 72 fluid as well to arrive at a correlation for heat flux for varying fluids, heat fluxes and inclinations, covering 116 data points. The performance trends predicted by the correlation are in line with those reported in the literature.

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Abbreviations

A :

Area, mm2

Bo:

Bond number

C :

Specific heat capacity, J/kg-°C

d :

Inner diameter of the tube, mm

D :

Outer diameter of the tube, mm

E :

Voltage, V

Fr:

Froude number

h :

Enthalpy, J/kg

I :

Current, A

Ja:

Jakob number

Ku:

Kutateladze number

L :

Length of the section, mm

m :

Number of trials

Mo:

Morton number

n :

Number of samples over a minute

P :

Pressure, Pa

Pr:

Prandtl number

\( \dot{Q} \) :

Heat load, W

\( \dot{q} \) :

Heat flux, W/m2

r :

Resistance, °C/W

R :

Radius of the bend, mm

Re:

Reynolds number

T :

Temperature, °C

V :

Volume, ml

We:

Weber number

a :

Adiabatic section

avg :

Average

c :

Condenser

corr :

Correlated

cs :

Cross-section area of the flow

dry :

Dry (fluidless)

e :

Evaporator

eff :

Effective

exp :

Experimental

fg :

Liquid-vapour

fill :

Fill ratio

h :

Horizontal

htc :

Heat transfer portion of condenser

hte :

Heat transfer portion of evaporator

i :

Number of sample

int :

Internal

k :

Location of temperature measurement

L :

Left

l :

Liquid

max :

maximum

R :

Right

sat :

Saturation condition

sc :

Surface area in condenser

se :

Surface area in evaporator

th :

Thermal

trans :

Transducer

v :

Vapour

val:

Valve

vc:

Straight portion of condenser

ve:

Straight portion of evaporator

β :

Angle of inclination from horizontal, degree

Δ :

Difference

μ :

Dynamic viscosity, Ns/m2

ρ :

Density, kg/m3

σ :

Surface tension, N/m

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MTRDC, DRDO, Bangalore, India

    Parthasarathi Srikrishna, Nagarajan Siddharth, Shambhavi Desai & S. Umamaheswara Reddy

  2. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

    Narasimham G. S. V. L.

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  1. Parthasarathi Srikrishna
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  2. Nagarajan Siddharth
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  3. Shambhavi Desai
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  4. S. Umamaheswara Reddy
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  5. Narasimham G. S. V. L.
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Correspondence to Parthasarathi Srikrishna.

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Parthasarathi, S., Nagarajan, S., Desai, S. et al. Effect of bend radius and insulation on adiabatic section on the performance of a single closed loop pulsating heat pipe: experimental study and heat transfer correlation. Heat Mass Transfer 57, 1871–1892 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-021-03085-y

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