A Polymer-Based Pulsating Heat Pipe: Fabrication and Investigation of Thermal Performance

Abstract

The method of fabricating a polymer-based PHP was suggested. In this study, as a thermoplastic polymer, low density polyethylene (LDPE) sheet was used for consisting channel base of pulsating heat pipe. A wrapping film has multi-layer which consists of Al-layer and few polymer layers, and it was attached to channel base using the heat sealing method. The channel base sheet was cut into general closed loop PHP shape which has 8 turns. The experiments were conducted to estimate the thermal resistance according to various input powers and 4 bending angles, i.e. 0 degrees (vertical), 30 degrees, 60 degrees, 90 degrees. At 12 W, the polymer-based PHP has the minimum thermal resistance which is 17% lower than that of the copper reference sample. The thermal resistance slightly increases as the bending angle increases. However, there is a quite large difference when the bending angle is 90 degrees. Additionally, to reduce the permeation through the sides, the indium was used to block the sides and UV-curing resin was used to protect the indium layer. From this work, the polymer-based PHP was fabricated as a heat spreader which is fully flexible, thin and lightweight at a low cost.