Non-linear study on thermally driven vapor-liquid two-phase pulsating in closed loop of pulsating heat pipe

An experiment is conducted to measure wall temperature oscillation during the thermally driven vapor-liquid two-phase pulsating in closed loop of pulsating heat pipe (PHP). The 3-D chaotic attractors of the collected time-domain temperature pulsating are reconstructed, the patterns of which are correlated with the vapor-liquid two-phase pulsating modes. The evolution of non-linear characteristics for wall temperature oscillation is also analyzed. It is indicated that the thermally driven vapor-liquid two-phase pulsating in closed loop of PHP is not periodic or random, which is typically chaotic. The patterns of 3-D chaotic attractors for wall temperature oscillation is sensitive to the transition of the vapor-liquid two-phase pulsating modes, which thus can be regarded as an useful tool for identifying the vapor-liquid two-phase pulsating modes inside PHP. © 2016, Science Press. All right reserved.