HEAT DISSIPATION INVESTIGATION OF GROOVED HEAT PIPE

Heat pipe is a simple heat transport device having very high 'effective thermal conductance'. Due to its significant advantages like compactness, light weight and passiveness, heat pipe finds a wide range of applications to dissipate heat. Some of the applications of heat pipe are cooling of electronic components, flattening of temperature in aerospace vehicles, waste heat recovery from exhaust gas, etc. Flat rectangular heat pipes can economically be employed for handling large heat transfer rates when weight and space are major constraints. The working medium which is entrapped within the heat pipe experiences phase transformations from liquid to vapour and vice versa. The vapour working medium which is formed by the vaporisation of liquid at the evaporator region by absorbing heat from the heat source, flows to the condenser section through the vapour core. The vapour condenses at the condenser zone by rejecting heat to the sink and returns to the evaporator through the porous wick structure utilising capillary pumping pressure for re-evaporation. The working fluid experiences pressure drop both in the wick region and vapour channel. The simple theory of the heat pipe states that the capillary pressure developed in the wick should be greater than the sum of the pressure drops in the vapour core and in the wick structure. If the heat pipe is not horizontal, then gravitational head will also play a role in the pressure balance