Numerical Analysis of Thermal Performance of Flat Heat Pipe

Three dimensional numerical investigation is carried out to study the influence of geometry on thermal behavior of flat heat pipe. Two phase mixture model has been formulated to investigate the phase change phenomena during steady state operation of flat heat pipe. In this model, single fluid approach is used and governing equations for mass, momentum and energy are discretised using finite volume method. In this investigation, effect of presence of wick columns (WC) on the thermal performance of flat heat pipe is predicted when the evaporator heat input and the convective heat transfer coefficient on the condenser surface are assumed to be constant. Results predicted by the present model are validated with numerical results available in the literature. It is observed that introducing wick columns improves thermal performance of flat heat pipe.