Fabrication and Testing of Flexible Pulsating Heat Pipes

The demand for flexible microelectronics has increased significantly within the last decade. This study investigates the cooling performance of flexible pulsating heat pipes (PHPs) made from acrylic with a bend radius of ≈300 mm. The fabricated devices support two-phase, pulsating fluid flow inside the rectangular microchannels. Both water and ethanol are used as coolants, where local hot spots are generated by cobalt-alloy foil heaters inside the flexible PHPs. The PHP's dissipate the heat generated to the environment via copper condensers with controlled setpoint temperatures. Based on a heater surface area of ≈1.5 cm²and a condenser setpoint temperature of 25°C, the maximum heat flux observed for sustained and repeatable cooling with water and ethanol was 8 W /cm². These heat fluxes correlate well with other PHP studies with similar heater power loads, channel geometries, and coolants.