Effect of number of turns and configurations on the heat transfer performance of helium cryogenic pulsating heat pipe

•The effect of number of turns on the heat transfer performance of helium PHP is studied.•The different dry-out temperature responds of 8-turn PHP and 48-turn PHP were observed and analyzed.•Two configurations of PHP, parallel and series configurations, are defined and compared. The pulsating heat pipe (PHP) is a potential alternative to highly conductive metals such as copper for long distance heat transfer. Effective thermal conductivity and heat transfer capacity of a PHP are two of the most critical factors for practical applications. In this paper, a helium based PHP, which consists of 48 parallel tubing sections, was developed. The lengths of the evaporator, adiabatic and condenser sections are 50 mm, 100 mm and 50 mm respectively. The condenser section was thermally anchored to a Gifford-McMahon cryocooler (GM cryocooler) with a cooling capacity of 1.5 W at 4.2 K. A maximum effective thermal conductivity of 12330 W/m∙K was obtained when 1.1 W heat was applied to the evaporator section at a fill ratio of 70.5%. With the same geometric parameters and operational parameters, the effect of the number of turns on the heat transfer performance was figured out by comparing the 48-turn PHP with an 8-turn PHP. The results show that the temperature difference between the evaporator and condenser sections of the 48-turn PHP is much smaller than that of the 8-turn PHP. The dry-out temperature response, effective thermal conductivity and heat transfer capacity of them are obtained and analyzed. Furthermore, two configurations of the 48-turn PHP, a parallel configuration and a series configuration, are defined. An optimum configuration is proposed and makes a reference to the design of a cryogenic PHP for applications.