Experimental Study of Thermal Performance of Pulsating Heat Pipe Filled with Hybrid Nanofluids

Pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) are efficient devices which can be used for thermal management and electronics cooling. They use two-phase flow and phase change phenomena to transfer heat from a hot reservoir to a cold reservoir. Nanofluids include a base fluid andnanoparticles which are dispersed homogeneously in the base fluid. Their thermal conductivity is higher than that of the base fluid. In this study, the thermal performance of a copper PHP filled with a hybrid nanofluid is investigated experimentally. Two types of nanoparticlesare chosen for this purpose namely TiO2 and Fe2O3. The base fluid is water. The thermal performance of the device in the form of thermal resistance and startup performance is studied. Water, single type nanoparticle nanofluids including TiO2/water and Fe2O3/waternanofluids and hybrid nanofluids including TiO2- Fe2O3/water with different percentages of TiO2 and Fe2O3 in the base fluid are used as the working fluid. The results show that hybrid nanofluids have better thermal performance than water and single type nanoparticle nanofluids. They decrease the startup time and temperature and thermal resistance of the device.

Keywords:

pulsating heat pipe (PHP) , hybrid nanofluid , thermal performance , startup performance