Capillary driven thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of axial swallow-tailed micro-grooved heat pipe

ABSTRACT

Thermal and hydrodynamic models were developed for an axial swallow-tailed micro-grooved heat pipe and solved numerically. The axial heat conduction, the variation of the axial meniscus radius and the thin liquid film heat transfer in the evaporator and condenser sections were included in the proposed model. The results showed that the liquid film thickness increases along the axial direction of the microgrooves. The evaporation heat transfer coefficient of the liquid-vapor interface in the evaporator section is greater than the condensation heat transfer coefficient of the liquid-vapor interface in the condenser section. Additionally, the evaporation/condensation mass flow rates in the adiabatic section are not all zero. The wall, liquid and vapor temperatures are almost the same in the adiabatic section. In addition, an experimental study was performed to verify the heat transfer model in a heat pipe with axially swallow-tailed microgrooves. Moreover, in this paper, the obtained numerical results are accordant with the obtained experimental data.

KEYWORDS:

• Grooved heat pipe
• heat transfer
• capillary force
• hydrodynamic characteristics

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi, China (Grant No.20161BAB206133).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi, China [20161BAB206133];