Review and assessment of Pulsating Heat Pipe mechanism for high heat flux electronic cooling

Pulsating Heat Pipe (PHP) assisted heat sinks/chips present significantly lower spreading resistance, resulting in a higher heat removal capacity and more uniform temperature in electronic components and provide more packaging flexibilities. Theoretical and experimental investigations have shown that PHPs' heat spreading performance can be as high as that of diamond substrate. This article reviews some of the fundamental mechanisms involved in a PHP operation. The effectiveness of PHPs is presented in terms of heat transfer capacity, flexibilities, and limitations. The performance of a simple heat sink with and without an embedded heat pipe is also evaluated numerically.