Self-oscillations in oscillating heat pipes

Self-oscillations in oscillating heat pipes are investigated experimentally. A theoretical model of self-oscillations is constructed for the case where the heater is located at the top. Characteristic times of temperature oscillations are obtained, which agree well with experimentally obtained values (of the order of 15 s). It is demonstrated experimentally that the average operating time of a heat pipe increases abruptly with increasing number of turns. The distribution of self-oscillation times is found, which turns out to be close to Gaussian.