Numerical study of flow and heat transfer in the vapour grooves of a loop heat pipe evaporator
Résumé
A three-dimensional numerical study is developed to investigate the heat and mass transfer in the vapour
removal channels of a Loop Heat Pipe (LHP). The heat transfer governing equations and the Navier-Stokes
equations are solved under steady-state conditions for two vapour removal channel configurations: when the
channels are in the wick and when the channels are in the casing. The boundary conditions for both configurations
are extracted from numerical simulations using a model of the evaporator in which the modelization of
the transfers in the wick is based on a pore network model. The results show that assuming that the vapour
temperature in the channels is close to the saturation temperature is acceptable when the channels are within the
wick but questionable when the vapour removal channels are within the casing. The simulations also indicate
significant variations of the wall temperature between the various channel limiting surfaces. The heat transfer
coefficient is different on the various surfaces and cannot be predicted using standard correlations for convective
heat transfer in pipes.
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