Abstract
For use of oscillating heat pipes (OHPs) in a space environment, in addition to a high performance, it is very important that they work in a wide range of conditions, temperature and heat input. In this paper, the operating limit expansion of OHP by using capillary effect was studied experimentally. To prevent dry-out, a grooved OHP and an OHP in which a wire wick was partially inserted were proposed. Although the grooved OHP did not show a marked improvement on the operating limit and heat transport performance, the wire-wick OHP showed a good performance. In case of a filling ratio of 50%, the operating limit of heat input could be improved about 20% as compared with that of the without-wire-wick OHP.
