Thanks to a recent collaboration with the Universities of Parma and Pisa, under the ESA MAP Project TOPDESS, a new publication was added to Prof Marengo‘s and the AEC already stellar list. The paper is entitled ” Thermal characterization of a multi-turn pulsating heat pipe in microgravity conditions: Statistical approach to the local wall-to-fluid heat flux“, and is published in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (IP: 4.947). This is just the latest addition to the team’s extensive investigations on Pulsating Heat Pipe (PHP) for Space Applications, in which the AEC has established itself as a world leading institute.

The paper utilizes a innovative approach, called Inverse Heat Conduction Problem (IHCP), to understand the thermal behaviour of a PHP specifically designed for the International Space Station, analysing data obtained during the 67th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign. and  . The PHP was instrumented with a non contact high-speed Infrared Camera, focused on the adiabatic zone.

The investigation was focused on the flow working regimes, and the results highlighted that “such approach is capable of providing similar information regarding the fluid motion inside the PHP to those obtained by the traditional intrusive experimental methods” that eventually would perturb or disrupt the normal thermal behaviour of the device.