Evaporation and condensation heat transfer in a heat pipe with a sintered-grooved composite wick

A mathematical model of evaporation and condensation heat transfer in a copper-water wicked heat pipe with a sintered-grooved composite wick is developed and compared with experiments. The wall temperatures are measured under different input power levels and working temperature conditions. The results show that the heat transfer in the condenser section was found to be only by conduction. In the evaporator, however, either conduction or boiling heat transfer can occur. The experimental data for the boiling heat transfer are well correlated by the theory of Stralen and Cole. Higher heat load drives the heat pipe to spend more time achieving the equilibrium state during the transient start-up process. The response curves of the evaporator thermal resistance are overlapped, and the condenser thermal resistance increases more sharply at the beginning. The total thermal resistance of the heat pipe ranges from 0.02 to 0.56 K/W. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.