Influence of inclination angle on heat transfer performance of heat pipe radiator with an array of pulsating condensers

Highlights: • Designed and manufactured an array pulsating condensers heat pipe radiator. • This radiator has low thermal resistance and great heat dissipation performance. • The inclination angle has a great influence on the heat pipe radiator. To solve the heat dissipation problem of high heat flux density chips with various installation angles, a novel type of heat pipe radiator with an array of pulsating condensers is proposed, which is suitable for heat dissipation of chips with different installation angles. The focus is on the influence of different installation angles on its optimal filling rate, start-up performance, heat transfer performance and temperature uniformity performance, and the following conclusions are drawn: in the case of a large inclination angle (>15°), the optimal filling rate is 25%; in the case of an inclination angle of 0° and 15° and power of being lower than 40 W, it is 25%; in the case of an inclination angle of 0° and 15° and power of being higher than 40 W, it gradually approaches 30% from 25%; when the heat pipe radiator starts up, the 60° inclination angle allows the easiest start-up, while the 0° inclination angle causes the most difficult start-up, and the other inclination angles make little difference to the start-up; when the heat pipe radiator is in operation, the optimal inclination angle is 60° and the corresponding minimum thermal resistance is 0.132 °C/W, and it still has an extremely strong heat transfer ability at an 0° inclination angle. The novel heat pipe radiator can allow good heat dissipation from 0° to 90°; the relation between thrust F and inclination angle α of the liquid film per unit mass is F = 0.819g sin(23.2°+α), which is highly consistent with the relation between the thermal resistance and the inclination angle; with power higher than 40 W, the mean value of the heat source temperature deviation of the heat pipe radiator fluctuates greatly with the change of the inclination angle, the greatest fluctuations occur from 0° to 15°, with the minimum value appearing at 0° and the maximum value 15°. With power lower than 40 W, the mean value of the heat source temperature deviation changes smoothly with the inclination angle, and 15° is the turning point of the fluctuation.