Fabrication of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) pulsating heat pipe

This paper reports on the preliminary experimental results of using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to manufacture a visual pulsating heat pipe with length, width and internal diameter of 56 mm, 50 mm and 2 mm, respectively, including the manufacturing process, the vacuuming management for filling and packaging. The experiment used methanol and ethanol as working fluids. A fix filled ratio (about 60%) and different heating power values (3–8 W) were used to test the thermal performance. A high-speed video camera was used to record the working situation of the working fluid inside the channel. The results are discussed and analyzed. The experiment shows that methanol, in a vertical orientation, shows the most efficient results. When the heating power is 3 W, the thermal resistance is more than 4.5 °C/W below the value for ethanol as the working fluid. For a heating power of 4 W, the average temperature decreases to 15 °C in the evaporator. Also, gravity will have an impact on the PHP performance: the vertical orientation is better as compared to the horizontal orientation.