LOW-ORDER MODEL OF THE DYNAMICS AND START-UP OF A PULSATING HEAT PIPE

A simple open-loop pulsating heat pipe model is proposed, which allows to analytically determine the start-up behavior by a linear stability analysis. Two distinct types of instability can occur in such a pulsating heat pipe: oscillatory and non-oscillatory. This paper demonstrates that for bubbles consisting of non-condensible gas, large temperature gradients along the wall are required to achieve start-up, whereas start-up is fairly easy to achieve when there is only a single working medium that forms bubbles from its vapor. The study also finds that surface tension as such only influences start-up indirectly, while contact angle hysteresis dampens out any instabilities.