Herein, a horizontal CPU cooler with a pulsating heat pipe (PHP) for cooling
desktop computer was developed. In the experiment, an electric heating block
was used to heat a copper plate to simulate the heating process of CPUs. The
cooling system consists of a cooling fan and a pulsating heat pipe cooler.
The influence of cooling wind speed and heat load on heat transfer
performance, start-up performance, and temperature uniformity of the PHP
cooler was analyzed by controlling variable method. The wind speed was set
to be 0 m/s, 0.1 m/s, 0.3 m/s, 0.5 m/s and 0.7 m/s respectively. The contour
plots were used to analyze the uniformity of temperature distribution due to
cooler. The results show that the start-up of the PHP led to a decrease in
temperature of CPUs. As the cooling wind speed increased, the start-up time
of the php dropped, the start-up temperature dropped, and its stability was
also improved. The operation at different cooling wind speeds also changed
the start-up mode of the PHP. The start-up performance was best at cooling
wind speed of 0.3 m/s. The contour plot for temperature showed that the
temperature distribution of the PHP cooler became more uniform with
increased cooling wind speeds. There was excellent temperature uniformity at
the cooling wind speeds of 0.3 m/s and 0.7 m/s. When the cooling wind speed
was 0.7 m/s, the minimum average thermal resistance was 0.51 K/W.
LOW-ORDER MODEL OF THE DYNAMICS AND START-UP OF A PULSATING HEAT PIPE
