Review and assessment of Pulsating Heat Pipe mechanism for high heat flux electronic cooling

Pulsating Heat Pipe (PHP) assisted heat sinks/chips present significantly lower spreading resistance, resulting in a higher heat removal capacity and more uniform temperature in electronic components and provide more packaging flexibilities. Theoretical and experimental investigations have shown that PHPs´ heat spreading performance can be as high as that of diamond substrate. This article reviews some of the fundamental mechanisms involved in a PHP operation. The effectiveness of PHPs is presented in terms of heat transfer capacity, flexibilities, and limitations. The performance of a simple heat sink with and without an embedded heat pipe is also evaluated numerically.