Flat miniature heat pipe with sintered porous wick structure: experimental and mathematical studies

摘要

Miniature heat pipes are considered as an innovative solution able to dissipate high heat fluxes with low working fluid charge, temperature control, and operating with minimum energy consumption and less noise. In this paper, results show that tilt ranging [10°:60°] has not an impact on heat transfer meanwhile the system thermal resistance is the lowest at horizontal position. A theoretical analysis on heat pipe thermal performance has been carried out based on experimental data by predicting heat pipe evaporation and condensation heat transfer coefficient. The measured heat transfer coefficients are close to the predicted results with a mean deviation less than 10%. A hydraulic mathematical model is developed and shows a good agreement with Kaya's study using water as working fluid. This work comprises a parametric study that investigates the effect of particles size, porosity, permeability, heat pipe length on heat transfer and capillary pressure. The obtained results show that the heat pipe operating temperature rises when particles size increases from 1μm to 90 μm and the optimum porosity range is between [10%-40%].