Numerical and experimental investigation of pulsating heat pipes with corrugated configuration

A single loop pulsating heat pipe with corrugated configuration in evaporation, adiabatic, and condensation section is numerically and experimentally investigated in present work. The investigation is carried out under the condition of varying input power ranged from 5 W to 40 W and filling ratio ranged from 30% to 60%. In the numerical investigation, VOF model is used to probe the feature of two-phase flow inside the single loop pulsating heat pipe. The present numerical results such as vapor-liquid flow pattern and variation trend of the thermal resistance show a good consistency with those of the experiments. It's found that the pulsating heat pipe with corrugated configuration in evaporation section has the best performance of start-up and heat transfer of present considered cases. The results show 28.96% decrease in start-up time and 37.57% in thermal resistance due to the application of corrugated configuration, which presents a remarkable improvement in the overall performance of pulsating heat pipe. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.