Effect of Internal Wick Structure on Liquid-Vapor Oscillatory Flow and Heat Transfer in an Oscillating Heat Pipe

Abstract

Liquid-vapor oscillating flow and heat transfer in a vertically placed oscillating heat pipe (OHP) with a sintered particle wick structure are analyzed in this paper. The oscillatory flow of the liquid slug is driven by the variations in pressures in the vapor plug due to evaporation and condensation. The evaporation and condensation heat transfer coefficients are obtained by solving the microfilm evaporation and condensation on the sintered particles. The sensible heat transfer between the liquid slug and the channel wall are obtained by analytical solution or empirical correlations depending on whether the liquid flow is laminar or turbulent. The effects of the sintered particles wick structure on the oscillatory flow, as well as sensible and latent heat transfer, are analyzed and compared with the results without wick structure. A parametric study on the oscillatory flow and heat transfer in the OHP with sintered particle wick structure is also performed.