A mathematical model for analyzing the thermal characteristics of a flat micro heat pipe with a grooved wick

Abstract

A mathematical model is developed for predicting the thermal performance of a flat micro heat pipe with a rectangular grooved wick structure. The effects of the liquid-vapor interfacial shear stress, the contact angle, and the amount of liquid charge are accounted for in the present model. In particular, the axial variations of the wall temperature and the evaporation and condensation rates are considered by solving the one-dimensional conduction equation for the wall and the augmented Young-Laplace equation, respectively. The results obtained from the proposed model are in close agreement with several existing experimental data in terms of the wall temperatures and the maximum heat transport rate. From the validated model, it is found that the assumptions employed in previous studies may lead to significant errors for predicting the thermal performance of the heat pipe. Finally, the maximum heat transport rate of a micro heat pipe with a grooved wick structure is optimized with respect to the width and the height of the groove by using the proposed model. The maximum heat transport rate for the optimum conditions is enhanced by approximately 20% compared to existing experimental results.

Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Flows and Heat Transfer Within Flat Mini Heat Pipe Including Grooved Capillary Structures

“…The effect of the groove depth, width and vapor space on the heat transfer capacity of miniature heat pipes was analyzed. Do et al (2008) developed a mathematical model for predicting the thermal performance of a FMHP with a rectangular grooved wick structure. The effects of the liquid-vapor interfacial shear stress, the contact angle, and the amount of liquid charge are accounted for in the present model.…”

Thermal performance of ultra-thin flattened heat pipes

“…UTHPs with different wick structures have different thermal characteristics. Do et al [9] theoretically analyzed the performance of grooved heat pipes with the vapor-liquid inter-facial shear theory and insisted that the dragging limit was the main heat transfer limit. Liou et al [10] investigated the thermal performance of flat plate heat pipes with mesh wick.…”

The Effect of Thickness and Permeability of Wick Structure on L-Shape Heat Pipe Performance Using Different Working Fluids

“…Reviews by (Faghri 1994), (Groll et al 1998) and (Vasiliev 2005) provided detailed information on this topic. In addition, the main theoretical and numerical studies on heat pipes with capillary grooved structures were investigated by (Khrustalev and Faghri 1995a;b), (Faghri and Khrustalev 1997), (Khrustalev and Faghri 1999), (Zhang and Faghri 2001), (Jacolot et al 2008), (Do et al 2008), (Do and Jang 2010).…”