This study is investigated the thermal performance of seven turns of the oscillating heat pipe (OHP) by an experimental investigation and CFD simulation. The OHP is designed and made from a copper tube with an inner diameter 3.5 mm and thickness 0.6 mm and the condenser, evaporator, and adiabatic lengths are 300, 300, and 210 mm respectively. Water is used as a working fluid with a filling ratio of 50% of the total volume. The evaporator part is heated by hot air (35, 40, 45, and 50) oC with various face velocity (0.5, 1, and 1.5) m/s. The condenser section is cold by air at temperature 15 oC. The CFD simulation is done by using the volume of fluid (VOF) method to model two-phase flow by conjugating a user-defined function code (UDF) to the FLUENT code. Results showed that the maximum heat input is 107.75 W while the minimum heat is 13.75 W at air inlet temperature 35 oC with air velocity 0.5m/s. The thermal resistance decreased with increasing of heat input. The results were recorded minimum thermal resistance 0.2312 oC/W at 107.75 W and maximum thermal resistance 1.036 oC/W at 13.75W. In addition, the effective thermal conductivity increased due to increasing heat input. The numerical results showed a good agreement with experimental results with a maximum deviation of 15%.
ASETS-II OSCILLATING HEAT PIPE SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIMENT: THE FIRST SIX MONTHS ON ORBIT
