Energy Conversion and Management 156 (2018) 358–364

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Energy Conversion and Management

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

Fabrication and experimental evaluation of a polymer-based flexible T

pulsating heat pipe
⁎
Jonghyun Lim, Sung Jin Kim
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: A polymer-based flexible pulsating heat pipe (FPHP) as a flexible heat spreader was developed, and a series of
Pulsating heat pipe experiments were conducted to evaluate the thermal performance and the long-term reliability of the FPHP. The
Polymer FPHP consisted of a multilayer laminated film and a low-density polyethylene (LDPE) sheet. HFE-7000 was used
Flexible heat spreader as the working fluid, and the width, length, and thickness of the FPHP were 53.4 mm, 85.5 mm, and 1 mm,
Long-term reliability
respectively. To minimize the permeation of non-condensable gases (NCGs) in a lateral direction, the heat-sealed
flanges were covered with the indium coating. Owing to the indium-coated flanges, the long-term reliability of
the FPHP drastically increased. The lifetime of the FPHP was defined to evaluate the long-term reliability. The
FPHP had a lifetime of 18.2 days in the acceleration test environment, which was equivalent to 306 days in a
standard atmosphere and 17 times longer than the previous polymer-based PHP. The FPHP had the thermal
resistance of 2.41 K/W, which is 37% lower than that of the copper reference sample in a vertical orientation.
Under bending conditions as well as in a horizontal orientation, the FPHP still operated well as a PHP, but the
thermal resistance increased slightly. The fabrication method of the FPHP is effective in minimizing the per-
meation of NCGs in a lateral direction and can pave the way for fabricating a thin flexible heat spreader that has
high flexibility, high thermal performance, and long-term reliability.

1. Introduction
With the development of technology, electronics are going through
drastic changes in their shape and performance. Recently, there has
been a growing demand for flexible electronics, such as flexible display
panels and wearable devices. The improved performance of flexible
electronics involving these trends causes a local heating problem, which
is the main reason for malfunctions and safety concerns [1]. Therefore,
an advanced heat spreader, which is flexible and thin with high thermal
performance is greatly needed. A pulsating heat pipe (PHP), which is
comprised of a smooth meandering tube, is noted for a promising so-
lution due to its simple and wickless design [2]. During the last three
decades, various studies have been conducted to understand the op-
erational characteristics of PHPs. In most of these studies, PHPs were
fabricated using rigid materials such as copper, aluminum, glass and
silicon [3–8]. These rigid materials have high gas barrier properties.
However, as a heat spreader for flexible devices, rigid materials are not
suitable due to their remarkably low flexibility.
Polymer is an appropriate material for a flexible PHP due to its high
flexibility. Some researchers have previously developed polymer-based
PHPs. Lin et al. [9] fabricated the first polymer-based PHP, which had 6
channels with width, length, and diameter of 50 mm, 56 mm, and
2 mm, respectively. They use polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as a base
material and two kinds of working fluids: methanol and ethanol. Ji
et al. [10] also made a similar sized PDMS-based PHP and investigated
the effect of nanofluid on the thermal performance under an electric
field. Recently, Qu et al. [11] developed a tubular type flexible PHP
using fluororubber tubes. The length, outer diameter and inner dia-
meter of the PHP were 1.07 m, 6 mm, and 4 mm, respectively. However,
these previous studies used metal tubes or plates at the evaporator and
condenser sections. Such a combination of polymer and rigid section at
the evaporator and condenser part was used to reduce the wall thermal
resistance. The polymer wall should be thick enough for structural
stability, but the wall has a high thermal resistance [12,13] due to the
low thermal conductivity of polymers. These combination types have
inherent limitations regarding flexibility. In addition to the flexibility
limitation, the long-term reliability is another issue to overcome for
fabricating polymer-based PHPs. Polymer-based PHPs have a serious
drawback in maintaining their thermal performance due to the high gas
permeability of the base material. Ogata et al. [14,15] fabricated a PHP
using UV-curable polymer resin and polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
film and investigated the change in the thermal performance over time.

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sungjinkim@kaist.ac.kr (S.J. Kim).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.11.022
Received 28 August 2017; Received in revised form 20 October 2017; Accepted 8 November 2017
Available online 20 November 2017
0196-8904/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Lim, S.J. Kim Energy Conversion and Management 156 (2018) 358–364

Nomenclature ρ density [kg/m3]

σ surface tension [N/m]
A area [m2]
C0 molar volume [m3/mol] Subscripts
D diameter [m]
K gas permeability [m2/s·Pa] acc acceleration test environment
P pressure [N/m2] atm standard atmosphere
Qin input power [W] con condenser
R gas constant [J/mol·K] eva evaporator
Rth thermal resistance [K/W] i gas species
t time [s] l liquid phase
T temperature [K] v vapor phase
V volume [m3]

Greek symbols

δ permeation length [m]

Even though PET has quite low gas permeability among polymer [16],
the thermal performance of their PHP decreased very rapidly in a day
due to the permeation of NCGs [17–20] and the leakage of the working
fluid [21]. To reduce permeation and leakage, they improved their
design by gluing a gas barrier film onto the top and bottom of the PHP.
With this modification, the PHP was able to maintain its thermal per-
formance for 18 days. However, the long-term reliability is still a major
stumbling block for polymer-based PHPs.
This study proposes a fabrication method for a new type of polymer-
based flexible PHP (FPHP) to overcome the difficulty associated with
the long-term reliability. A series of experiments were performed to
investigate the thermal performance and the long-term reliability of the
FPHP. The thermal performance of the FPHP was investigated for four
cases (i.e., vertical orientation, horizontal orientation, vertical eva-
porator and horizontal condenser position (VE-HC), and vertical con-
denser and horizontal evaporator position (VC-HE)). An accelerated life
test was also conducted to verify the long-term reliability of the FPHP.
The long-term reliability of the FPHP was evaluated to compare the
lifetime, which was defined as exposure time the thermal performance
decreases more than 10% of its initial value. Based on the experimental
result, the effect of the indium-coated flanges on the long-term relia-
bility was evaluated.
2. Experiments
2.1. Fabrication of the FPHP
PHPs are two-phase systems that transfer heat from the evaporator
to the condenser by the pulsating or oscillating motion of the working
fluid in the form of slug-train units. The diameter of a channel (D) is
restricted to a specific range for slug-train units to be formed, and the
criterion governed by the Bond number is presented as follows [22]:
where σ , g , ρl , and ρv are the surface tension, gravity acceleration, li-
quid density and vapor density, respectively.
In this study, the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) base, which has
very low Young’s modulus, and a wrapping film form the meandering
square channel with a height of 0.81 mm. The base has width of
53.4 mm and length of 85.5 mm, and the number of turns of the FPHP is
12 with a dual diameter channel of 1.4–0.7 mm to maximize the
thermal performance [23]. HFE-7000 (3M®) is used as the working
fluid, and the thermophysical properties of the working fluid is sum-
marized in Table 1. The multilayer laminated film has 5 layers shown in
Fig. 1, and each layer has a specific purpose. A linear low-density
polyethylene (LLDPE) is the innermost layer, which is widely used as a
sealant polymer and the same kind of polymer as the base material. In
the middle of the layer, Al-foil with a thickness of approximately 7 μm
forms a gas barrier. The outermost layer is polyethylene terephthalate
(PET), which has good chemical and mechanical resistance for pro-
tecting the whole film structure. We used a commercial film known as
the vacuum envelope. The thickness of each layer could be changed, but
the thickness of the Al-layer should be thicker than approximately
10 µm to effectively block gas permeation [24].
The fabrication method is as follows; the LDPE base was cut into a
closed-loop PHP shape by a femtosecond laser (L2K Plus, Inc) shown in
Fig. 2. On the femtosecond time scale, the thermal damage to the sur-
face can be minimized because the time scale, during which the elec-
trons are excited is shorter than the electron-phonon scattering time
[25]. The surface of the base was washed with an ethanol and distilled
water to remove any dust and impurities. After that, a multilayer la-
minated film was attached to the base with suitable heat and pressure,
and the four sides of the base were sealed with a width of 6 mm. The
total thickness of the FPHP fabricated in this study is 1 mm. However,

σ
D ⩽ 1.84
g (ρl −ρv ) (1)

Table 1
Thermophysical properties of HFE-7000 at 23 °C.

Properties (unit)

Liquid density (kg/m3) 1400

Kinematic viscosity (cSt) 0.32
Surface tension (dynes/cm) 12.4
Latent heat of vaporization (kJ/kg) 142
Boiling point @ 1 atm (°C) 34
Specific heat (J/kg·K) 1300
Fig. 1. SEM image of the multilayer laminated film.

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J. Lim, S.J. Kim Energy Conversion and Management 156 (2018) 358–364

Table 2
Gas permeability of LLDPE and LDPE layer [24].

LLDPE LDPE

CO2 4.22 5.66

O2 1.57 1.7
N2 0.44 0.53
H2O 34.2 36.2

7
Premeation of air
6

Pressure of NCGs [kPa]

5

Fig. 2. Photograph of the LDPE base. 4

3
the thickness of the FPHP can be freely reduced by changing the
thickness of the base material. 2
As aforementioned, the primary concern for fabricating a polymer-
1
based PHP is the permeation of NCGs into a PHP. However, the sealant
polymers in the heat-sealed flanges are still exposed to ambient air, as 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
depicted in Fig. 3.
The heat-sealed flange is very thin, but the permeability of the Time [Month]
sealant polymer is so high that permeation of NCGs into the PHP in a Fig. 4. The permeation pressure of NCGs in a lateral direction.
lateral direction should be considered. Although the heat-sealed flanges
were sealed with the sealant layer, NCGs can still permeate into the
(∼153 °C) and Young’s modulus (∼10 GPa) in comparison with other
FPHP due to sorption and diffusion. Based on Fick’s law, the permeation
metals. These desirable properties of indium make it suitable to be
pressure is calculated by the following equation [24]:
coated on the heat-sealed flanges without damaging the polymer film or
AR 0 T ⎞ ⎫ disturbing the flexibility. After that, the indium coating was covered
Pi = Pi,atm ⎧1−exp ⎛−Ki
⎜ t ⎟
with a flexible UV-curing resin (NOA68, Norland Products, Inc) to
⎨
⎩ ⎝ δC0 V ⎠ ⎬⎭ (2)
protect the metal coating from cracking under bending conditions.
where Ki,A,R 0,T ,t ,δ ,C0,V , Patm and Pi are the permeability coefficient,
exposed area, gas constant, temperature, exposed time, length of per-
meation route, molar volume, inner volume, ambient pressure, and
inner pressure, respectively. Generally, gas permeability could be UV resin
measured experimentally, and the permeability of LDPE and LLDPE are
shown in Table 2.
Using Eq. (2) and Table 2, the permeation pressure of NCGs over the
549μm
exposure time was calculated and shown in Fig. 4. The pressure of NCGs
inside of the FPHP would be approximately 1 kPa after 36 days. This
pressure of NCGs is high enough to degrade the thermal performance of Heat-sealed flange
PHPs [18]. To reduce the high permeation pressure of NCGs in a lateral Indium coating
direction, an effective gas barrier is required on the heat-sealed flanges.
In this study, the indium coating was applied to the heat-sealed flanges
to cover the permeation route for minimizing the permeation of NCGs
Fig. 5. Cross-section SEM image of the indium coating on the heat sealed-flange.
in a lateral direction. Indium has a remarkably low melting point

Gas permeation Fig. 3. Schematic of the permeation route in a lateral di-

rection.
in a lateral direction

PET Al

LDPE & LLDPE

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Fig. 5 shows a cross-section SEM image of the heat-sealed flange. The

permeation route through the heat-sealed flange was blocked by the
indium coating and UV-curing resin. Finally, the evacuating/filling tube
was connected to the FPHP by a high vacuum epoxy (Torr-seal, Agilent
Technologies, Inc).
After fabrication, a leak test was conducted to confirm the seal in-
tegrity of the FPHP with the following procedure: the air was removed
from inside the FPHP by a pump connected to a helium leak detector
(VSMR152, Agilent Technologies, Inc), and a little amount of helium
was administered to the suspected leak sites of the FPHP using a helium
spray probe. The detector can check the helium leak rate to the level of
10−10 atm-cc/s, but no helium leaks into the FPHP were detected. Fig. 6
shows schematic and photograph of the fabricated FPHP. The areas of
light gray and dark gray indicate the base part and the part of the heat-
sealed flanges, respectively. As shown in Fig. 6(b), the FPHP has very
high flexibility. Prior to charging the working fluid, the air inside of the
FPHP was evacuated by a high vacuum pump (TURBOVAC 350iX,
Oerlikon). After evacuating to an inner pressure of less than 3 × 10−6
Torr, the desired amount of working fluid was charged into the FPHP
from the degassed working fluid chamber. The filling ratio was fixed at
50%. The degassing process of the working fluid involved three steps:
boiling of the working fluid to reduce the dissolved NCGs, freezing of
the working fluid, and removal of unfrozen NCGs using a rotary pump
(W2V29, Woosung Automa Co., LTD).

2.2. Experimental setup

2.2.1. Experimental apparatus for the thermal performance evaluation

Fig. 7(a) shows a schematic of the experimental apparatus used to
investigate the thermal performance of the FPHP. The evaporator sec-
tion was fixed at the appropriate position by holding bars under the
bending conditions. A stainless steel film heater, which is connected to
a DC power supply (N5772A, Agilent Technologies, Inc), was used to
supply the input power. The condenser was composed of the copper
water jacket connected to a bath circulator (RW-0525G, JEIO Tech),
which provided 20 °C water to the water jacket. To avoid damage to the Fig. 7. Schematics of the (a) experimental apparatus for investigating the thermal per-
formance and (b) each section.
film surface when the thermocouples (K-type) are pressed to the FPHP,
grooved copper blocks were attached to the evaporator and condenser
sections to insert the thermocouples. As depicted in Fig. 7(b), the material and wrapped in the same film, was used to compare the
temperatures were measured at 3 points on the copper surface of the thermal performance of the FPHP, shown in Fig. 8.
evaporator section, 5 points on the copper surface of the condenser All experiments were conducted in an acrylic case filled with cotton-
section, and 4 points on the wall of the adiabatic section. The tem- wool to minimize heat loss to the environment. The heat loss to the
perature data were recorded via a data acquisition system (34970, environment from the experimental setup was obtained by the differ-
Agilent Technologies, Inc) and measured within an accuracy of ±0.4 °C. ence between the input power and the heat transfer rate, which is taken
The copper reference sample, which is the same size as the base from the temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the

Fig. 6. (a) Schematic and (b) photograph of the FPHP.

361
J. Lim, S.J. Kim
water jacket. The result showed that the heat loss was less than 7% of
the input power at the high input power range, so it was neglected in
the analysis of the experiment results and taken into account in the
uncertainty analysis. The input power supplied to the evaporator sec-
tion increased from 2 W in 1 W increments, and the experiment was
stopped when the maximum temperature reached 63 °C.
2.2.2. Experimental apparatus for the accelerated life test
The long-term reliability of PHPs is the main concern for developing
polymer-based PHPs. The reliability of PHPs depends on the permea-
tion of NCGs and the leakage of the working fluid. A previous study
[12] investigated the changes in the thermal resistance over the ex-
posure time in a standard atmosphere and a 30 Pa atmosphere. In a
30 Pa atmosphere, the thermal resistance of the PHP was maintained
for a month, while it was maintained for just one day in a standard
atmosphere. This result shows that the permeation of NCGs into a PHP
is a much more dominant factor that determines the long-term relia-
bility of a PHP rather than the leakage of the working fluid from a PHP.
Therefore, an accelerated test environment for conducting an ac-
celerated life test can be designed to accelerate the permeation of NCGs
into a PHP. An accelerated life test enables the verificiation of the long-
term reliability of the FPHP over a short time. In this study, carbon
dioxide (CO2) was used to accelerate the permeation of NCGs into the
FPHP. The amount of CO2 in a standard atmosphere is very small, ap-
proximately 0.03%, so the effect of CO2 can be neglected. However, the
permeability of CO2 through LLDPE/LDPE is much higher than other
gases such as N2 or O2. Additionally, gas permeability increases as the
temperature increases due to increased diffusion at high temperature.
Thus, an acrylic chamber filled with 0.8 atm of CO2 and 1 atm of air at
40 °C, shown in Table 3 was used as the acceleration test environment.
The permeation pressures of NCGs in a standard atmosphere and the
acceleration test environment can be calculated by summing up the
permeation pressure of each gas independently [26] as follows:
{ (
Patm = ∑i Pi,atm 1−exp −Ki δ
A R 0 Tatm
C0 V atm
t )} ,
(i = N2,O2,H2 O) (3)
{ ( A R 0 Tacc
Pacc = ∑i Pi,acc 1−exp −K ′i δ C0 V acc
t )} ,
(i = N2,O2,CO2) (4)
Fig. 9 shows the permeation pressures of the NCGs calculated using
Eq. (3) in a standard atmosphere and Eq. (4) in the acceleration test
environment. The solid line (top x-axis) indicates permeation pressure
in a standard atmosphere, and the dotted line (bottom x-axis) indicates
permeation pressure in the acceleration test environment. The x-axis
points of each graph, which corresponds to the same y-axis point, in-
dicate the exposure time when the same amount of NCGs have per-
meated. For example, an exposure time of 10 days in the acceleration
test environment has the same amount of permeation pressure with
4.9 months in a standard atmosphere. Thus, the 10 days in the accel-
eration test environment are equivalent to 147 days in a standard at-
mosphere. Likewise, the exposure time in the acceleration test en-
vironment was converted into the time in standard atmosphere using
Fig. 9.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Thermal resistance of the FPHP
To evaluate the thermal performance of the FPHP, the thermal re-
sistance is obtained from the following equation:
362
Energy Conversion and Management 156 (2018) 358–364
Fig. 8. Schematics of the FPHP and the copper
reference sample.
(Teva−Tcon )
Rth =
Qin (5)
where Rth,Teva,Tcon, and Qin are the thermal resistance, average tem-
perature of the evaporator section, average temperature of the con-
denser section, and input power, respectively. The average tempera-
tures of each section are obtained using the time-averaged wall
temperatures of the copper surface at the pseudo-steady state. The
uncertainties were obtained from the summation of the precision error
and the bias error of each parameter. The working ranges and the ac-
curacy of experimental instruments are presented in Table 4. Particu-
larly, the heat loss, which was evaluated in Section 2.2.1, was con-
sidered in the accuracy of the input power. The uncertainty analysis
was performed in accordance with a 95% confidence interval using the
method proposed by Holman [27]. In this study, the overall un-
certainties were less than 8.5%. To compare the thermal performance of
the FPHP under bending conditions, the experiments were conducted
for four cases as depicted in Fig. 10.
Due to the very low thermal conductivity of the base material, ap-
proximately 0.3 W/m⋅K, the thermal resistance of the uncharged FPHP
is extremely high. However, when it operates as a PHP, the temperature
of the evaporator decreases rapidly. Fig. 11 shows the variation of the
temperature of the evaporator section over time at an input power of
2 W in a vertical orientation. At first, the temperature of the evaporator
increases, but the temperature decreases rapidly after a specific mo-
ment. This phenomenon is a well-known operating characteristic of
PHPs, called the startup [28]. The thermal resistance also decreases
rapidly after the starup, and the FPHP has the thermal resistance of
2.6 K/W at an input power of 2 W. From input powers of 3–16 W, the
thermal resistance is approximately 2.41 K/W, which is 37% lower than
that of the copper reference sample shown in Fig. 12. In a horizontal
orientation, the thermal resistance is 30% higher on average than that
in a vertical orientation, and the minimum thermal resistance is 3.3 K/
W at an input power of 5 W. It is known that the thermal performance
of PHPs decreases or do not operate at all in a horizontal orientation
due to the absence of gravity when it has only a few turns [29]. A dual-
diameter channel helps to operate the FPHP in a horizontal orientation
[23]. The capillary pressure difference generated by the difference in
the channel diameters helps the liquid to return to the evaporator
section without the presence of gravity. A large difference in channel
diameters forms a sufficient capillary pressure difference that leads to a
uniform thermal performance of PHP regardless of the orientation [23].
Although a dual-diameter channel was applied, the thermal perfor-
mance of the FPHP decreases somewhat in a horizontal orientation.
This is because the diameter of the larger channel is only twice that of
the smaller channel due to manufacturing constraints. Even though the
FPHP has a decreased thermal performance in a horizontal orientation,
the FPHP still has a lower thermal resistance than that of the copper
reference sample.
Under 90° bending conditions, the FPHP maintains its shape and
still operates well. However, the thermal resistance of the FPHP under
bending conditions is slightly higher than that in a vertical orientation.
On average, the thermal resistance of the VE-HC case is 5.5% higher
Table 3
Composition of standard atmosphere and the acceleration test environment.
Standard atmosphere Acceleration test environment
Temperature 23 °C 40 °C
N2 0.78 atm 0.78 atm
O2 0.21 atm 0.21 atm
H2O 60% RH 0%
CO2 0.0003 atm 0.8 atm
J. Lim, S.J. Kim Energy Conversion and Management 156 (2018) 358–364

Time [Month]
36 Startup
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Vertical orientation
8 Qinput=2W
34
7 Patm

Temperature [ C]
32

o
6 Pacc
Pressure of NCGs [kPa]

30
5

4 28

3 26

2 24

1 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

0
Time [s]
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Fig. 11. Temperature distribution of the evaporator section at the input power of 2 W in a
Time [Day] vertical orientation.
Fig. 9. The permeation pressures of NCGs in a standard atmosphere and the acceleration
test environment. 7

Copper sample
Table 4 6 Horizontal orientation
Working range and accuracy of experimental instruments. VC-HE

Thermal resistance [K/W]

VE-HC
Working range Accuracy 5 Vertical orientaiton

DC power supply 0–400 V (0–2.6 A) 7% (Including heat loss)

K-type thermocouples −100–1200 °C ± 1 °C ( ± 0.4 °C)a 4

a
Accuracy in the present study (from 20 °C to 63 °C).
3

1
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17
Input power [W]
Fig. 12. Thermal resistances of the copper reference sample and FPHP according to
various input powers.

(a) Vertical orientation (b) Horizontal orientation

the case of VC-HE is higher than that of the case of the VE-HC.
According to experimental results, the FPHP developed in this study
operates well as a PHP not only in vertical and horizontal orientations,
90
but also under bending conditions. Even though the absence of gravity
in the sections lying horizontally causes the decreased thermal perfor-
mance of the FPHP, the FPHP still has a lower thermal resistance than
90
that of the copper reference sample, and its weight is light weighing
only 16% of the copper reference sample.

(d) Vertical evaporator and (c) Vertical condenser and

horizontal condenser position
(VE-HC)
Fig. 10. Schematic of the experimental configuration for four cases.
than that in a vertical orientation, and the thermal resistance of the VC-
HE case is 8.1% higher than that in a vertical orientation. These thermal
resistances are involved in the increased thermal performance in a
horizontal orientation mentioned above. In the case of the VC-HE, the
condenser stands vertically, while the evaporator lies horizontally.
Thus, the gravity force does not help the liquid supply to the eva-
porator. Likewise, in the case of the VE-HC, the evaporator stands
vertically, while the condenser lies horizontally. Thus, it is difficult for
the condensed liquid at the condenser section to go down to the eva-
porator section. Because the thermal resistance is directly linked to the
liquid supply to the evaporator section [29], the thermal resistance in
horizontal evaporator position 3.2. Long-term reliability of the FPHP
(VC-HE)
The long-term reliability of the FPHP is evaluated to compare the
lifetime, which is defined as the exposure time the thermal performance
decreases more than 10% of its initial value. We investigate the change
in the thermal performance according to the exposure time in the ac-
celeration environment, and the exposure time is converted into the
time in standard environment using Fig. 9. Fig. 13 shows the change in
thermal performances of the FPHP over the exposure time in the ac-
celeration test environment an input power of 10 W with and without
the indium coating on the heat-sealed flanges. As time goes on, the
thermal performance of the FPHP decreases due to the permeation of
NCGs into the FPHP. While the thermal performance of the FPHP
without the indium coating decreases by 10% of its initial value after
8.3 days in the acceleration test environment, that of the FPHP with the
indium coating decreases by 10% of its initial value after 18.2 days.

363
J. Lim, S.J. Kim
5 previous polymer-based PHP [15]. The fabrication method of the
FPHP with indium coating
Decreasing of thermal performance [%]
FPHP without indium coating
0 spreaders which have high thermal conductivity, flexibility, long-
-5
-10
-15
-20
.2 days
-25
0 4 8 12 16 20
Time [Day]
Fig. 13. Decreasing ratio of the thermal performance over the exposure time in the ac-
celeration test environment at the input power of 10 W.
According to Fig. 9, 8.3 days and 18.2 days in the acceleration test
environment correspond to 119 days and 306 days in standard atmo-
sphere.
NCGs can permeate into the FPHP through the heat-sealed flanges
and disturb the oscillating motion of the working fluid as mentioned in
Section 2.1. However, owing to the indium coating on the flange walls,
the lifetime of the FPHP increases by 2.6 times compared to the FPHP
without the indium coating.
4. Conclusion
In the present study, a polymer-based flexible pulsating heat pipe
(FPHP) was developed, and the thermal performance and the lifetime of
the FPHP were evaluated experimentally. The FPHP consisted of a low
density polyethylene (LDPE) as the base material and a multilayer la-
minated film as the casing material. The overall dimensions of the FPHP
were 53.4 mm × 85.5 mm × 1 mm. The main issue for fabricating a
polymer-based PHP is the long-term reliability, which is deteriorated by
the permeation of non-condensable gases (NCGs). Permeation of NCGs
through the top and bottom walls were blocked by the Al layer in the
film. Additionally, to extend the long-term reliability, the indium
coating was applied to block the permeation of NCGs through in a
lateral direction. From the experimental results, the conclusions are as
follows:
(a) The thermal performance of the FPHP was evaluated for four cases,
i.e. vertical orientation, horizontal orientation, vertical evaporator
and horizontal condenser position (VE-HC), and vertical condenser
and horizontal evaporator position (VC-HE). The FPHP operated
well as a PHP not only in a vertical orientation but also in a hor-
izontal orientation and under bending conditions. In a vertical or-
ientation, the FPHP had the thermal resistance of 2.41 K/W, which
was 37% lower than that of the copper reference sample over a
wide range of input powers, and furthermore, the weight of the
FPHP was only 16% of the weight of the copper reference sample.
In a horizontal orientation, the thermal resistance was 30% higher
than that in a vertical orientation, and the thermal resistances in-
creased to 8.1% and 5.5% in the cases of the VC-HE and the VE-HC
than that in a vertical orientation, respectively.
(b) The lifetime was defined to compare the long-term reliability of the
FPHP. The results of the accelerated life test showed that the life-
time of the FPHP with the indium coating was 18.2 days in the
acceleration test environment. This exposure time was equivalent to
306 days in standard atmosphere, which is 2.6 times longer than the
FPHP without the indium coating and 17 times longer than the
Energy Conversion and Management 156 (2018) 358–364
FPHP presented in this study can shed a light on a flexible heat
term reliability, and light weight.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No.
2012R1A3A2026427).
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