Experimental Investigation of a Flat-Plate Oscillating Heat Pipe During High-Gravity Loading

The thermal performance of a miniature, three-dimensional flat-plate oscillating heat pipe (3D FP-OHP) was experimentally investigated during high gravity loading with non-favorable evaporator positioning. The heat pipe had dimensions of 3.0 × 3.0 × 0.254 cm³ and utilized a novel design concept incorporating a two-layer channel arrangement. The device was charged with acetone and tested at a heat input of 95 W within a spin-table centrifuge. It was found that the heat pipe operated and performed near-independent of the investigated hyper-gravity loading up to 10g. Results show that at ten times the acceleration due to gravity (10g) the effective thermal conductivity was almost constant and even slightly increased which is very different from a conventional heat pipe. The gravity-independent heat transfer performance provides a unique feature of OHPs.