Numerical investigation of a transient operation of a heat pipe with experimental validation

In this paper, a full transient analysis of the performance of a heat pipe with a wick structure is performed. For the vapor flow, the conventional Navier-Stokes equations are used. For the liquid flow in the wick structure, which is modeled as a porous media, volume averaged Navier-Stokes equation are adopted. The energy equation is solved for the solid wall and wick structure of the heat pipe. The energy and momentum equations are coupled through the heat flux at the liquid-vapor interface that defines the suction and blowing velocities for the liquid and vapor flow. The evolution of the vapor-liquid interface temperature is coupled through the heat flux at this interface that defines the mass flux to the vapor and the new saturation conditions to maintain a fully saturation vapor all the time. A control volume approach is used in the development of the numerical scheme. A parametric study is conducted to study the effect of different parameters that affect the thermal performance of the heat pipe. And experimental setup is developed and numerical results are validated with experimental data. The results of this study will be useful for the heat pipe design and implementation in processes that are essentially transient and steady state conditions are not reached like for example drilling applications.