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This work presents an experimental investigation of the thermal performance of a flat-plate heat pipe during startup and shutdown operations. Using the analytical model developed in a previously study, analytical and experimental results on the effect of input power and cooling heat transfer coefficient on the thermal performance of the heat pipe are presented and discussed. The results indicate that the wick in the evaporator section provides the largest resistance to the heat transfer process followed by the wick in the condenser section. It is found that the heat transfer coefficient has an insignificant effect on the maximum temperature difference across the heat pipe where this difference refers to the maximum difference on the outside surfaces of the flat-plate heat pipe. However, as expected, the input heat flux has a substantial effect on the temperature rise where the temperature rise refers to the temperature increase on the outside surface of the heat pipe. It is found that the temperature difference across the heat pipe depends mainly on the input power. The heat transfer coefficient strongly affects the time it takes to reach steady state while input power has a substantially smaller effect. Empirical correlations for the maximum temperature rise, the maximum temperature difference and the time constants are obtained. The experimental results are compared with the analytical results and are found to be in very good agreement. [S0022-1481(00)01803-X]

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