Marcin Opalski, a PhD student from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, won the national competition for master’s theses on the application of computational methods. Since 2006, the competition has been organized by the Department of Thermal Technology of the Silesian University of Technology under the auspices of the Thermodynamics and Combustion Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The organizers of the competition want to promote students’ achievements in the use of computational techniques in the broadly understood thermal technique. As they emphasize, these methods allow for a significant reduction in the production costs of new products and shortening the preparation time of the technological process.
In his master’s thesis, the laureate dealt with the numerical analysis of multiphase flow taking into account the phase change in a pulsating heat pipe (PHP). He described the principle of PHP operation. The movement of the steam bubbles oscillating inside it is forced by the temperature differences between the heated and cooled part.
