A vapor chamber is a flat-plate heat pipe, where a cooled (condenser) section is much larger than a heated (evaporator) section, and has been used as a heat spreader to enhance the cooling of electronic devices. An objective of this study is to integrate the vapor chamber into a polycarbonate board. Plastic materials are easy to manufacturing, light weight, low cost, flexible, and then the present study aims at performing a phase-change heat transfer and a heat spreading inside the polycarbonate board. A sintered copper powder and water are used as a wick structure and a working fluid, respectively. In experiments, the heat is applied by a heater while the cooling water is circulated between a thermostatic bath and a cooling jacket. The experiments are conducted changing a liquid volume and a heat input, and the transient temperature distribution of the vapor chamber is measured by thermocouples. For comparison, the experiment is also conducted where the working fluid is not charged into the vapor chamber. Moreover, based on a thermal resistance network, an analytical model of the vapor chamber is made and the analysis is performed on the phase-change heat transfer inside the vapor chamber. From the experimental and analytical results, the heat transfer characteristics of the polymer-based vapor chamber and the effectiveness of the phase-change heat transfer are confirmed.
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