Thermal response of a heat pipe with axially “Ω”-shaped microgrooves

A transient model of capillary flow and heat transfer in a heat pipe with axially “Ω”-shaped microgrooves is developed and numerically analyzed to predict the thermal response characteristics. The transient distributions of the axial capillary radius and solid wall temperature, the evaporating mass rate, the time constant and instantaneous effective thermal conductivity are all investigated and discussed. The results indicate that the rise rate of wall temperature during the initial period is relatively larger, and the coordination of solid wall temperature response among the evaporator, adiabatic and condenser section is realized during the whole startup process. When the input power is increased/decreased, the evaporator temperatures start rising/dropping immediately. In particular, the time constant and instantaneous effective thermal conductivity in the startup process are larger than those in the shutdown process. Additionally, the accuracy of the present model is verified by experimental data obtained in this paper.