Experimental Investigation of Oscillation Controlled Heat Transport Tubes

The oscillatory flows are widely used to enhance heat transfer or as an alternative cooling technique. The oscillatory flows in liquids have the potential of augmenting heat transfer as demonstrated in literature. The subject needs to be investigated in order to fully understand the thermal transport mechanism and affecting parameters. In this investigation, heat transfer in an oscillatory pipe flow of water was studied, experimentally for low frequency regime flow conditions. Major research tasks are; setting up of the experimental apparatus, parametric experimental investigation of the convective heat transfer in oscillatory pipe flow and data reduction and analysis. An experimental apparatus was designed and constructed for the experimental investigation. The equipment consist a capillary pipe bundle connecting a cold fluid and a hot fluid reservoir. The effects of the maximum displacement amplitude of the vibrations and vibration frequency on the heat transfer were analyzed with a parametric study. Significant effect of oscillatory flow on the thermal transport compare to pure diffusion was measured. The heat transfer is greatly enhanced as vibration displacement increase. The results of the present investigation will be useful in choosing optimum operation parameters for cooling applications utilizing oscillatory flows.