Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Heat transfer characteristics and LED heat sink application of aluminum plate
oscillating heat pipes
Zirong Lin a, Shuangfeng Wang a, *, Jiepeng Huo a, Yanxin Hu a, Jinjian Chen a, Winston Zhang b, Eton Lee b
a
Key Laboratory of Enhanced Heat Transfer and Energy Conservation of the Ministry of Education, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
b
Novark Technology Inc, Shenzhen, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An experimental study was carried out to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of aluminum plate
Received 13 December 2010 oscillating heat pipes (OHPs), which consisted of parallel and square channels. Sizes, different cross-
Accepted 5 March 2011 sections and different number of turns were considered. In the experiments, acetone was used as
Available online 21 March 2011
working fluid. The study on the effect of heating mode orientations, cooling conditions and internal
structures had been done through visualization observation and thermal performance tests. The flow
Keywords:
visualization showed that the aluminum plate OHPs can maintain the heat transfer characteristics of
Aluminum plate oscillating heat pipes
liquid and vapor slug oscillation as well as the conventional tubular OHPs. The flow pattern changed and
Heat transfer characteristics
Flow visualization
OHPs’ thermal performance improved with the increase of heating power. The trend in one-way
Heat transport capability direction circulation of working fluid emerged. The tests showed that the gravity greatly influenced the
LED cooling thermal performance of plate OHPs. Increasing the cooling temperature decreased the thermal resistance
of plate OHPs. Increasing the number of turns and area of channel cross-section could improve the heat
transport capability of plate OHPs. A heat sink with a plate OHP was developed for LED (Light Emitting
Diode) cooling, TDP (Thermal Design Power) of which was 64 W. The result showed that the temperature
of the LED significantly decreased while being cooled by natural convection when a plate OHP was used
in LED heat sink.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Oscillating heat pipes (OHPs) have attracted the attention of
many researchers as viable candidates for enhancing heat transfer
through passive, two-phase heat transfer mechanism. OHP tech-
nology is predicted as one of the most promising solution for
compact cooling due to its simple design, small size and excellent
thermal performance. Generally, a conventional OHP consists of
tubes/channels of capillary dimensions arranged in a serpentine
manner and joined end to end as shown in Fig. 1(a). In fact, such
a loop serpentine tubular structure is not beneficial for OHPs being
used in a heat sink design assembly. For example, the combination
of heat pipes and fins become complicated; a groove metal plate is
required to be installed at the interface between the evaporation
section and the heating section for improving the heat dissipation.
With the aim of exploring potential applications of OHP tech-
nology, in 2002, Khandekar [1] et al. first designed the integral
structure which considered OHP as a part of thermal spreader, and
explained the operational characteristics and performance limits of
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 20 22236929.
E-mail address: sfwang@scut.edu.cn (S. Wang).
flat plate OHPs, where ethanol and water was used as working fluid.
In 2007, they also carried out the experimental study of embedded
structures in an aluminum substrate and estimated the effective
thermal conductivity of OHPs as 2500 W/mK [2]. In 2006, Xu [3]
et al. investigated the heat transfer characteristics of aluminum
plate OHPs by using HFC-134a and Butane as working fluid. The
lowest thermal resistance was 0.05
C/W. In 2007, Vassilev [4] et al.
designed an OHP exchanger with flat plate evaporator and
condenser. They found that the maximum heat throughput was
1400 W using water as working fluid. The performance of methanol
was quite close to water, even able to work against gravity. In 2008,
Yang [5] et al. presented an experimental study on two flat plate
OHPs in a thermal spreader configuration. When ethanol was used
as working fluid, the influence of various operating parameters was
investigated and successful operation at all orientations with
respect to gravity was achieved. In 2009, Fumoto [6] et al. used self-
rewetting fluids to enhance the heat transport capability of a flat
plate OHP constructed by aluminum tubes. Qu [7] et al. made
a thermal performance comparison between the embedded
circular and square capillary type. Quan [8] et al. studied the heat
transfer characteristics of plate OHPs with different cross-section
shapes. In summary, most of the researches focused on copper plate

1359-4311/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2011.03.003
2222 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229

Fig. 1. Comparison of different OHP structures. (a) A loop serpentine tubular OHP. (b)
An aluminum plate OHP with interconnected rectangular channels.

OHPs. Even the material and working fluid did not meet the high
reliability requirement in some cases. In addition, a few samples Fig. 2. Experimental apparatus of aluminum plate OHPs.
cannot be applied in industry-specific problems directly for the lack
of sufficient experimental data. 2. Experimental setup
According to the issues and reviews mentioned above, a novel
OHP structure is developed as shown in Fig. 1(b). A series of parallel In order to understand the operation mechanism of aluminum
interconnected rectangular channels are manufactured as a mea- plate OHPs, visualization experiments were carried out for internal
ndering closed loop in a metal plate. Considering the cost, an flow observation. The test mode was vertical bottom heating.
aluminum plate was selected as the material of the thermal A piece of glass sheet covered on the aluminum plate with a series
spreader as compared to copper. In addition, aluminum is more
suitable for excavating micro-channels, as harder than copper. Such Table 1
a closed loop structure of OHP built into an aluminum plate can Experimental parameters of aluminum plate OHPs.
reduce the contact resistance, simplify the manufacturing process,
Spreader Open/closed Cross-section Cross-section Turns Aluminum plate
and make the size of OHPs become smaller. It is beneficial to apply No. circulation shape size (mm) size (mm)
OHPs to the electrics surface directly for compact cooling.
1 closed rectangle 1.5  1.5 4 120  30  4
In this study, a series of experiments, including flow visualiza- 2 closed rectangle 2  2 6 120  60  4
tion and thermal performance tests, were performed to investigate 3 closed rectangle 2  2 10 120  80  4
the heat transfer characteristics of the novel aluminum plate OHPs. 4 closed rectangle 1.5  1.5 11 250  60  4
Then, a heat sink with a plate OHP was developed for LED (64 W) 5 closed rectangle 2  2 20 180  120  4
6 closed rectangle 1  1 33 180  120  4
cooling.
 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229 2223

of parallel interconnected rectangular channels in a closed loop
serpentine manner. When clamping the glass, the plastic washer
was filled into the slit of edges to prevent leakages. The flow
visualization experimental apparatus was shown in Fig. 2. The goal
was to visualize the bubble formation, movement, and growth,
which were expected to impact the OHP’s thermal performance.
Based on the consideration of compatibility, acetone was used as
working fluid.
In the experiment, as shown in Fig. 2, the length of evaporation
section was 20 mm. A copper block heater was used as the heat
source attached to the bottom of plate OHPs. Heating power was
varied by regulating different voltage and current through the
heater. The condensation section (20 mm) was cooled by water
module (25  0.05
C). In the liquid filling process, internal chan-
nels of the aluminum plate OHP was first exhausted and the
working fluid was fully filled into the tube under the pressure
difference. Liquid filling ratio (FR) was controlled around 50  5% by
the second vacuum, which assisted in discharging the excess liquid.
Temperature at different sections was measured using K-type
thermocouples. The detailed location of thermocouples was shown

Fig. 3. Start-up observations (growth of bubbles in vertical mode, spreader No.2).

2224 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229
in Fig. 2. T1 to T12 were installed to measure the average tempera-
ture of evaporation section, adiabatic section and condensation
section at different heating powers.
Besides the visualization experiments, several aluminum plate
OHPs were fabricated for thermal performance tests. The details
experimental parameters of aluminum plate OHPs were shown in
Table 1. The test apparatus and process followed that mentioned
above.
The test would be stopped when the average temperature of
evaporation section was over 100
C, usually the limiting operating
temperature for electronic devices. This was also a consideration of
the seal broken due to the larger vapor pressure of acetone. The
thermal resistance of aluminum plate OHPs was used as a criterion
for thermal performance comparison. It was assumed to be equal to
temperature difference between condensation section and evapo-
ration section divided by heating power. ROHP ¼ (Te  Tc)/Qh (ROHP:
thermal resistance of OHP; Te: average temperature of T1, T2, T3 and
T4; Tc: average temperature of T9, T10, T11 and T12; Qh: heating
power).
Fig. 4. Thin film evaporation in the evaporation section (1 second interval per photo, vertical mode, spreader No.2).
3. Flow visualization
After the second vacuum for liquid filling control, the temper-
ature of whole aluminum plate OHP would drop. Liquid and vapor
slugs showed the random distribution between the parallel chan-
nels due to capillary action. The proportion of vapor slug in both
side channels connected with the liquid injection tube, increased
significantly due to more liquid loss by the second vacuum. Most
liquid slugs located in the bottom of channels in vertical mode due
to gravity effect. When heating power input was lower (10 W),
bubbles would first emerge in both side channels at evaporation
section temperature of around 30
C, as larger proportion of vapor
slug resulting in low flow resistance. It was also noted that bubbles
mainly grew up in sharp corner of the square cross-section. The
record photos were shown in Fig. 3(A and B).
As the heating power increased, more bubbles emerged and
grew up in the sharp corner. The growth rate of bubbles increased.
As shown in Fig. 3(C and D), a typical phenomenon was observed
that the subsequent one caught up with the previous one at
 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229 2225

a higher jet speed. Several initial small spherical bubbles merged
into a big vapor column. The vapor column would rise to the
condensation section due to pressure difference.
As mentioned above, the intense boiling of working fluid in both
side channels caused pressure imbalance among all connected
channels, at the same time, which resulted in the liquid and vapor
slug intermittent oscillation. As shown in Fig. 3(E and F), the local
oscillation in both side channels gradually shifted to continuous
and interactive oscillation in all parallel channels, at evaporation
section temperature from 45
C to 55
C.
When the continuous and interactive oscillation became stable,
as shown in Fig. 4, the intense evaporation made a large vapor area
emerged in the evaporation section. A large number of bubbles grew
in this vapor area. There was a thin film between the wall and the
vapor slug, which caused high heat transfer efficiency [10,11].
According to the mark a, b, c, d, e and f, three bubbles grew up in the

Fig. 5. Bubbles operation through the condensation section (vertical mode, spreader No.2).
2226 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229

Fig. 8. Effect of cooling conditions on the performance of the plate OHPs.

channels. The visualization observation found that the trend of

one-way direction circulation occurred in spreader No.1 at 25 W,
the same trend in spreader No.2 and No.3 at 30 W. In contrast, only
the U-shaped up and down oscillation could be observed in
Fig. 6. Comparison of temperature record between conventional tubular and plate
OHPs. (a) Temperature record of plate OHPs with power steps (Spreader No.4).
(b) Temperature record of conventional tubular OHPs with power steps [9].

channel in 5 seconds. The distance of a tracking bubble was about

10 mm. As shown in Fig. 5, the shrink and burst of bubbles in
condensation section could be observed as a typical phenomenon.
The condensed working fluid turned into liquid film and flowed back
to the evaporation section with the help of gravity and inertia
oscillation. The heat transfer of plate OHP was achieved just through
this internal evaporation and condensation of working fluid.
As the heating power increased, the running distance of vapor
columns spraying from the evaporation section to the condensation
section also increased. As shown in Fig. 5, when the spraying
distance of vapor columns was more than the length of the plate
OHP, the oscillation of vapor slugs crossed the condensation
section. Then, the intermittent one-way direction circulation rep-
laced the U-shaped up and down oscillation in the connecting

Fig. 7. Effect of orientations on the performance of the plate OHPs. Fig. 9. Thermal performance comparison of different aluminum plate OHPs.
 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229
spreader No.4 in the test range of heating power. The vapor column
was able to be jetted up about 175 mm, 70% of the whole height. It
proved that there was an effective heat transfer length of plate
OHPs for efficient heat transfer through the circular flow in certain
heating power input.
As shown in Fig. 6(a), this was a typical operating temperature
curve of plate OHPs. When heating power increased, there was
temperature oscillation to prevent the temperature rise. The period
of bubbles growth was from 10 W to 20 W. The period of vapor
columns spraying was from 30 W to 40 W. At this time, the
temperature of evaporation section nearly remained the same. This
was considered as the plate OHP start-up and operating well.
In conclusion, the results of visualization experiments found
that the aluminum plate OHPs maintained the heat transfer char-
acteristics of conventional tubular OHPs. Their heat transfer also
mainly depended on the liquid and vapor slug oscillation. The
difference was that the temperature oscillation was weakened
under the temperature equalization effect of aluminum plate.
A typical temperature oscillation of the conventional tubular OHPs
was shown in Fig. 6(b). The comparison of the operating temper-
ature curves in Fig. 6 proved that aluminum plate OHPs were more
beneficial to electronic cooling. It was because electronic devices
required a stable operating temperature.
Fig. 10. Effect of inclination angles on the performance of the plate OHPs.
2227
4. Effect of heating mode orientation
The experimental results at different heating modes were
shown in Fig. 7. In the experiment, the evaporator (a copper block
with heating rods) and condenser (water-cooling module) were
placed about 10 mm from both ends, and the evaporation and
condensation section were set to 20 mm. The inlet of cooling water
was 25
C. The data showed that the gravity influenced the thermal
performance of plate OHPs. An aluminum plate OHP at vertical
bottom heating mode exhibited the lowest thermal resistance,
while the top heating mode had the worst performance. Thermal
performance in horizontal and side heating mode were in the
midrange due to gravity having a minimal effect. It was able to be
explained by pressure difference distribution. When a plate OHP is
operating, an approximately saturated pressure distribution of the
working fluid varied along the meandering parallel channel.
Gravity played an important role in these pressure distributions. If
horizontal heating mode was considered as a baseline, the greatest
pressure difference would appear in vertical bottom heating mode,
while the lowest one would be in vertical top heating mode. As
Fig. 11. A LED heat sink design of aluminum plate OHPs.
2228 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229
Table 2
Comparison on different assembly of LED heat sinks under natural convection.
Inclination Base contacted Temperature
angle/operation mode with LED of LED (
C)
Horizontal mode spreader No.5 66.70
30
spreader No.5 63.86
60
spreader No.5 61.84
Vertical mode spreader No.5 61.40
Horizontal mode aluminum plate 68.62
Vertical mode aluminum plate 68.96
mentioned in flow visualization, the liquid and vapor slug oscilla-
tion was determined by pressure difference. Therefore, the thermal
performance of plate OHPs was a function of the heating mode
orientations.
5. Effect of cooling condition
The effect of cooling condition on thermal performance of
aluminum plate OHPs were shown in Fig. 8. It maintained the same
experimental condition in Section 4, and varied the temperature of
cooling water from 15
C to 35
C. The results found that the higher
cooling temperature resulted in the lower thermal resistance at low
heating power. The performance difference among the cooling
conditions reduced as heating power increased.
In addition, according to data recorded in Sections 4 and 5, the
heat transport capability of aluminum plate OHPs was better than
the aluminum plate in the same size regardless of the heating mode
orientations. As shown in Fig. 8, when using vertical bottom heat-
ing mode, the thermal resistance of spreader No.2 was 0.18
C/W at
110 W. Compared with the same size aluminum plate in Fig. 7, the
thermal resistance decreased by about 82.5%.
6. Effect of internal structure
The effect of internal structure in aluminum plate OHPs was
shown in Fig. 9. According to thermal performance comparison of
the spreader No.1, No.2, and No.3, it was found that increasing the
area of flow channels could improve the heat transport capability of
an aluminum plate OHP, as flow resistance decreased. As can be
seen in Fig. 9, even in horizontal heating mode, spreader No.3 still
remained at a relatively low thermal resistance state. When the
heat flux input increased to 43750 W/m2, the thermal resistance of
spreader No.3 was 0.8
C/W. According to thermal performance
comparison of the spreader No.2 and No.4, it was found that, as
a major factor, length influenced the heat transport capability of
aluminum plate OHPs. The greater length of OHP resulted in the
worse heat transport capability. While judging from thermal
performance comparison of the spreader No.1 and No.4, increasing
the density of channels was able to reduce the adverse effect from
the length increase. This was because increasing the number of
turns was beneficial to enhance the instantaneous imbalance
among the meandering parallel channels, which induced the
oscillation of working fluid.
7. LED heat sink design with plate OHP
According to the heat transfer characteristics of aluminum plate
OHPs discussed in sections above, a unique heat sink with a plate
OHP was developed for LED (Light Emitting Diode) cooling, TDP
(Thermal Design Power) of which was 64 W. The heating area was
about 120  120 mm with four LED chips. Based on the perfor-
mance test in Section 6, the size of spreader No.5 and 6 with
different cross-sections and different number of turns were
Thermal resistance Ambient temperature (
C) Thermal resistance of LED
of base plate (
C/W) heat sink (
C/W)
0.15 32  2 0.54
0.13 32  2 0.50
0.12 32  2 0.47
0.11 32  2 0.46
0.15 32  2 0.57
0.19 32  2 0.58
designed to one and half times of spreader No.3. As the LED was
installed at a certain inclination angle, the effect of inclination
angles on plate OHPs first was investigated. As can be seen in Fig. 10,
the highest thermal performance occurred at vertical bottom
heating mode, decreasing continuously as the device was turned
towards horizontal. However, the performance remained nearly
comparable from vertical position to about 60
.
As a result, spreader No.5 was adopted for LED heat sink design
due to its lower thermal resistance. The LED heat sink design of
aluminum plate OHP was conceived. As shown in Fig. 11, an area not
in contact with the chips was reserved as the condensation section,
according to the result in forced convection. It was used to maintain
the operation pressure difference of OHPs. In addition, a mirror
with a tilt angle was installed near the condensation section for
gathering light. It also formed a sufficient space for the LED power
and circuit layout.
The thermal performance of LED heat sink with a plate OHP was
tested and compared with one without a plate OHP under natural
convection. The compared data of different assembly were shown in
Table 2 when TDP of LED up to 64 W. The LED heat sinks with plate
OHP had better performance than those using aluminum plates in
the same size regardless of inclination angle variation, accord with
the results in Fig. 10. The temperature of LED decreased by about 7
C
as inclination angle increased to 60
. Therefore, aluminum plate
OHPs used in the LED heat sink should be considered as an effective
solution for natural convection cooling.
8. Conclusions
Heat transfer characteristics of aluminum plate oscillating heat
pipes (OHPs) consisting of parallel square channels were studied.
The cross-sections and number of turns were experimentally
studied in a parametric fashion. Using the best design found from
the experiments, a LED heat sink design with a plate OHP was
developed. Several conclusions were summarized as follows:
(1) The flow visualization showed that the aluminum plate OHPs
maintained the heat transfer characteristics of liquid and vapor
slug oscillation similar to tubular OHPs. The flow pattern
changed and OHPs’ thermal performance improved with the
increase of heating power. The trend in one-way direction
circulation of working fluid emerged. The difference was that
the temperature oscillation of plate OHPs was weakened,
which was more beneficial to electronic cooling than conven-
tional tubular OHPs.
(2) The tests showed that the gravity greatly influenced the
thermal performance of plate OHPs. Increasing the cooling
temperature decreased the thermal resistance of plate OHPs.
Increasing the number of turns and area of the channel cross-
section could improve the heat transport capability of plate
OHPs.
(3) The temperature of a LED Light decreased significantly when
a plate OHP was applied in its heat sink. The heat sink with
 Z. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2221e2229
a plate OHP was considered as an effective solution for LED
cooling.
Acknowledgements
The authors deeply appreciate the financial support offered by
NSFC (Granted No.50876033), National Fund of Guang Dong Prov-
ince Joint Key Projects (U0834002) and Novark Technology INC.
Thanks for the constructive suggestions from A.A. Merrikh and
G.Refai-Ahmed (Life Fellow ASME) in Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD), Inc.
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